Apech

Since Trump got elected we have had nearly three years of: resist grab them by the pussy he's a racist, misogynist, homophobe, transphobe, islamophobe Stormy Daniels (FFS) literally Hitler Russiagate Mueller impeach, impeach, impeach ... and so on ... and not a scratch. Time to change the strategy Oh and ...

The size of the US military is genuinely frightening - and if you have a weapon I guess sooner or later you want to use it - so I concede yes the US military industrial complex is truly scary more scary than anything that has existed before. I like Tulsi Gabbard on this aspect. Maybe Sanders/Gabbard would be a good ticket.

By the way if you want to look round the world for a really nasty piece of shit, try Bolsonaro in Brazil. Sinister and highly unpleasant.

Spotless my dear chap my name is Apech not Apex - but I accept I am the pinnacle of something. Ok your view - I accept that - and maybe from here across the pond it does look a little different. Maybe Trump is the new Hitler but I ask you to consider that Hitler would not have put children in cages he would have shot them in the head. But where i do agree is that the US presidential system is (or can be) inherently fascistic - like a series of 4/8 year dictatorships. But I am sticking to my guns - doing my practice, praying for peace and hoping for the best.

Oh really? The Nazis, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Ghenghis Khan, the Spanish Inquisition ... I could go on.

Not all smacking is equal, some smacking is better than others. Or so my friends tell me

The woman on the left looks familiar.

Perhaps they feel threatened - I'm not sure.

Royal pain in the ass.

Thanks Steve, From a Buddhist perspective I think it might be helpful to say that anger, fear, uncertainty, dissatisfaction and so on - in any situation - are indispensable aids to vajrayana practice. By this I mean they give an opportunity for realising emptiness - because those emotions are fundamentally empty. By saying this I am not saying they don't matter - or that the political situation doesn't matter - I don't want to fall into the nihilist trap of saying 'its all illusion, man'. But it is very useful to use both good and bad situations for practice. So when we find a good situation we are happy for the benefit that arises - when we find a bad situation we are 'happy' for the opportunity to realise that what we are experiencing is a flux of energy. It must be true to say that whatever arises depends on causes and conditions - and this includes Trump. If you attack Trump then you are attacking the appearance of Trump - but if you look to the causes and conditions which gave rise to his election and deal with them then he will literally disappear (yes really) since whatever supports him will no longer be there. This is why I say that people voted for him because of dissatisfaction(s) in their lives - if you like, they were emotionally drawn to him (in sufficient numbers but not a majority) because they had needs. Needs that were not being met by the alternative narratives being presented about what had happened and what will happen. Perhaps you could say needs and aspirations - which I would say were born from (looking at the local time frame) chiefly the events since 9/11 when the USA was shocked into action/reaction leading to and through the 2008 financial crisis. Violent acts have violent results. Karma. I think that is why Trumps main bad feature, to me anyway, is instability - he's angry, defensive and personal when he doesn't need to be. I'm rambling now - but I hope you can see what I'm trying to say.

I have to confess that when I see a post like the one from @gendao above I never ever read them because they are copy pasted graphs and graphics / text and so on. I like to read what people think - how they develop their ideas - how they are feeling about something cos then I can respond if I feel I have something to say. I don't really care if I agree with them provided they are being genuine and thoughtful. Is it too naive to think that perhaps if the shooters had had people who respected them and listened to them in their lives they wouldn't have been shooters? That they might have been turned back from extreme views? Or am I just being a liberal lefty wishy washy type of human?

(....) I read this inspiring story about a Brazilian couple: https://aleteia.org/2019/05/01/brazilian-couple-replants-forest-with-over-4-million-trees/ "Salgado’s wife came up with the wonderful idea of replanting trees on their land in Minas Gerais. Along with relatives, the Salgados set up the Instituto Terra, an organization that has managed to plant an impressive four million saplings over the years. The results are remarkable. Land that was completely destroyed by the stripping of its forests is now carpets of green. And while the impact of the work of this devoted couple is impressive, Salgado also explained in the Guardian: “All the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment.” if I had the money I would do something similar - as although I live in a supposedly rural area it is all mono-culture and wildlife has noticeably reduced even in the last few years I've been here." I think the future could be this kind of thing but married with some hi-tech for communications, remote home working and the like. Small communities based round sustainable ecology. I find Marx and the like too 1890's for my liking - we need new solutions that meet social needs, more sane and healthy living and an economy that doesn't destroy.

I just watched Sanders on Joe Rogan and he's a completely reasonable guy.

I'm not sure - I just watched part of one of the debates where they raised their hands to this question. Maybe they meant as well as everybody else rather than before. But still it seemed a strange question.

Oh ok. I guess the beginning of European socialism is the French revolution. What you describe is really just the democratic system working. People vote for left wing programmes and then swing right as time progresses. Its just a matter of balance in the centre though as none of those left wing governments was revolutionary and none of the right wing governments was fascist. In fact these days its quite hard to tell the difference in the centre - but the extremes have become more polarised. Do you think that the US can go on (as the richest country in world) without giving all its citizens healthcare of some form? Bizarrely the Democratic candidates seem to want it for undocumented immigrants first - does this make any sense????? Weird.

I think there are always inequalities in capitalism - in a sense it doesn't matter that much if the lower end still have enough for a decent life. The current state of inequality which is vast and growing is at least partly a consequence of austerity measures following the 2008 crash - where governments pumped billions in public money into the system by liquidating the banks and through quantitive easing. These were bad policies which punished the poor and low income groups and allowed shareholder/owners to suck billions/trillions into their own hands. If governments had let banks go bust while underwriting individual savings and used the public money for new deal style investment then we would be in a very different place right now. If you mean soviet style communism - there are a lot of factors why that failed - some to do with Russia itself and its geopolitical makeup and so on. Can you afford not to is more the question, IMO.

God bless her majesty.

Hi, the last few days the main page and topics have been loading slower than they used to - is this a general thing or is it me? I wonder if no one objects if 'What made you laugh' could be moved from general to Rabbit hole so its sits with 'what are you listening to' and 'what are you watching on youtube' .... just seems to fit better there. Cheers. A.

Motivation is the thing.

Well, as a European I am still staggered by the fact that guns are so freely available in the US where most of the mass shootings occur. I've raised this before and been told that its about guaranteeing personal freedom against tyrrany and so on - because us Brits would reinvade and impose a monarchy on you or some such. Which is quite insane to be honest. But I came to accept after a lot of badgering that there's something cultural in the US that prefers people to have easy access to guns. I'm not saying guns are the cause by the way - they are not - but also I don't think its right-wing ideology - I think its the personal alienation of individuals which drives them to extremism. The left is not immune from violence itself - if you look around the world most state violence has been by left wing governments to the tune of 100s of millions. But it is true that someone who is alienated from society is more likely to go right than left - because the left emphasises society, inclusion and the rest. What needs to be addressed is why young men get to the point where they can justify to themselves mass murder - how does that fall occur - what are the real causes and conditions.

Meghan Markle

If enlightenment means seeing reality as it is ... then we are all ignorant ... so your friend is right (except this includes him as well). To our ego-identified fallen selves Spirit will appear as a trickster - like the Roman Mercury but then he also guides the dead.

Sorry but that's completely wrong. Feudalism came before Capitalism and in some (limited) ways was more benign in that if you had a good lord then you were taken care of. As a serf you had no personal freedom or social mobility but at least living in peasant communities on the land you had access to food (when there wasn't a famine). Under capitalism and growing industrialisation you were thrown off the land and forced to work in factories, live in substandard housing and although the old aristocratic social system had broken down and you theoretically had more freedom there was little chance to take advantage of it. Most people by 'European Socialism' mean something like the Nordic model - which means retaining private industry but high taxation to provide public services and welfare to a high standard. You call it unchecked kindness but I call it providing a good standard of living and dignity to people. This is completely uncontroversial in most of the world - except the US where you are wedded to a right wing approach where someone like Bernie Sanders is thought of as an extremist for advocating medicare for all etc.

Pastafarians believe in noodles (and the sauce of life itself).