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The amazing Alexandria

In a more well adjusted and life-lessons-learned world, Hopium this strong would be kept behind the counter and you’d be carded even with white in your beard. The card, of course, would have a chip to scan for brainwaves denotive of critical thought just to keep track on how fast they flatline after a boobalicious rooftop dance and some garish lipstick.

I would humbly suggest (since there doesn't appear to be a thread ) that AOC be dutifully consigned to add said Hopium into plans for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050. You're gonna need it.
 
In a more well adjusted and life-lessons-learned world, Hopium this strong would be kept behind the counter and you’d be carded even with white in your beard. The card, of course, would have a chip to scan for brainwaves denotive of critical thought just to keep track on how fast they flatline after a boobalicious rooftop dance and some garish lipstick.

I would humbly suggest (since there doesn't appear to be a thread ) that AOC be dutifully consigned to add said Hopium into plans for the UK to be carbon neutral by 2050. You're gonna need it.

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This is going to come across snarky, and I apologize in advance, but in order for me to be honest I don't have any choice.

Here we have a thread where the word "amazing" precedes the name of another in a long line of lightening rod politicians attempting to conduct unending frustration to effect legitimacy on an inherently illegitimate process, posted by someone with a cartoon avatar who uses an animated meme of a celebrity comedian to request specifics on a post not requiring any.

An so, again, a perfect example of why I nearly always feel like Spaulding Gray in a Rick Dees world when posting here.
 
Here we have a thread where the word "amazing" precedes the name of another in a long line of lightening rod politicians attempting to conduct unending frustration to effect legitimacy on an inherently illegitimate process
Barring revolution, how else can the system be changed if not by people like her trying to do so from the inside, Mark?
 
Barring revolution, how else can the system be changed if not by people like her trying to do so from the inside, Mark?

Well, the answer is sort of in the question. The short is it can't be changed from inside, as cycle after cycle aptly proves. Its design prevents meaningful change from inside. Or outside, for that matter. By design.

But the real issue isn't politicians at all. It's the electorate. Democracy was always ripe for exploitation because democracy enshrines mediocrity. Once you're past that, and realize people ultimately don't mind being herded and exploited so long as they're getting their little slice of goodness, the rest would seem pretty easy.

Bill Clinton spelled it out beautifully during a Q&A after a speech (post-presidency) when a guy got up and peppered him on a few of his policies. If memory serves it was the globalization stuff. Or maybe it was his numerous anti-regulatory positions. Hold on .. perhaps it was his idea of humanitarian projects, like operation ‘Noble Anvil’ (google that one); or how he instigated the Iraq war, or his ’94 Crime Bill that put more minorities in jail for longer sentences while culpable Wall Street actors not only went unscathed, they flourished. It's one of those. Probably best to ask someone like AOC since she's in the same political party. Anyway ...

His answer was as an epiphany. Clinton got very angry and wagged his finger at the questioner and asked him, “Where were you!” And he repeated it. Where were you when others manipulated my good intentions into something else. Where were you on this and where were you on that. He flipped the entire representative relationship, and as such any responsibility, around and onto an individual voter for asking the obvious questions. But really, Clinton was right. Not on the face value of it -- the angle of "If you’re going to allow your elected representatives to take a mile for every inch then you’re getting what you rightly deserve".

No, because people mostly know what they're getting. It could be a single hot button thing, like race or gender or immigration, sure. But for comfortable people, as most are in the 1st world, it's about maintaining that quality of 1st world life or even its illusion. Because it's a meritocracy, don't you know.

But back to AOC. The system needs lightening rods because people will always get pissed off. The degree to which lightening rods are unaware of their role makes them even more effective. That’s the beauty of it. And they can't ALL grab for the ring. Just ask Lizzie Warren. She toiled for years wagging her finger just like Clinton and just like AOC now. And Drone King Obama. The people's party. The audacity of hope! Yes sir … Pass the Hopium.
 
Well, the answer is sort of in the question. The short is it can't be changed from inside, as cycle after cycle aptly proves. Its design prevents meaningful change from inside. Or outside, for that matter. By design.
I think it can be changed from the inside, but only by making sufficient numbers of people on the outside aware of the urgent need for change, and engaged in the process.

For example Bernie Sanders has said, whether he means it is a different thing, that if he becomes president he'll go to the states of senators blocking the reforms he'd be elected to enact, like medicare for all, and hold rallies urging the people there to pressurise said senators into conforming.

This is the model required. The people need to play their part in forcing politicians into serving them, not their donors.

Once you can engage enough of them into doing this then anything is possible.

But the real issue isn't politicians at all. It's the electorate. Democracy was always ripe for exploitation because democracy enshrines mediocrity. Once you're past that, and realize people ultimately don't mind being herded and exploited so long as they're getting their little slice of goodness, the rest would seem pretty easy.

Bill Clinton spelled it out beautifully during a Q&A after a speech (post-presidency) when a guy got up and peppered him on a few of his policies. If memory serves it was the globalization stuff. Or maybe it was his numerous anti-regulatory positions. Hold on .. perhaps it was his idea of humanitarian projects, like operation ‘Noble Anvil’ (google that one); or how he instigated the Iraq war, or his ’94 Crime Bill that put more minorities in jail for longer sentences while culpable Wall Street actors not only went unscathed, they flourished. It's one of those. Probably best to ask someone like AOC since she's in the same political party. Anyway ...

His answer was as an epiphany. Clinton got very angry and wagged his finger at the questioner and asked him, “Where were you!” And he repeated it. Where were you when others manipulated my good intentions into something else. Where were you on this and where were you on that. He flipped the entire representative relationship, and as such any responsibility, around and onto an individual voter for asking the obvious questions. But really, Clinton was right. Not on the face value of it -- the angle of "If you’re going to allow your elected representatives to take a mile for every inch then you’re getting what you rightly deserve".

No, because people mostly know what they're getting. It could be a single hot button thing, like race or gender or immigration, sure. But for comfortable people, as most are in the 1st world, it's about maintaining that quality of 1st world life or even its illusion. Because it's a meritocracy, don't you know.
All very interesting and I agree that people aren't bothered enough once they enjoy a certain standard of living, but it's a numbers game. Once a majority are desperate enough, or can see that they soon will be then you've a chance of galvanising them, as Sanders suggested he would do, circumventing the brainwashing of the media and putting the angry mob on the backs of politicians blocking change.

But back to AOC. The system needs lightening rods because people will always get pissed off. The degree to which lightening rods are unaware of their role makes them even more effective. That’s the beauty of it. And they can't ALL grab for the ring. Just ask Lizzie Warren. She toiled for years wagging her finger just like Clinton and just like AOC now. And Drone King Obama. The people's party. The audacity of hope! Yes sir … Pass the Hopium.
I think AOC is a different breed. She's no Einstein, but she seems to be prepared to take on the establishment head-on.

I see her as a small force for good and potentially a conduit for change, but waking the masses up from their slumber is key. Not easy when, as you say, many are just comfortable enough not to care, and when many only see politics as they do a football match, where they just want their team; Democrats or Republicans, to win, and they think they win.
 
I have a pet theory that posits the human mental process behind ignoring risk for a perceived reward is linked with the mental gymnastics required for everything from the ability to ignore unimaginable catastrophe, such as Climate Change, to the socially-herded groupthink behind voting people totally unfit into office (if they get their cut) and grotesque selective empathy.

A good example of the latter I won’t bother to type when this graphic does a much better job -

fgrrsycxr5431.png
 
That’s an interesting graphic. It is difficult to empathise in the abstract. Very few from the first world know anything about Sudan but nearly all have visited the cathedral. I’ve visited both so I can empathise more with Sudan, a terribly poor country at war with itself for decades yet everywhere I went, as ever, full of the most generous, compassionate human beings. The bureaucracy was a bit shit though.
 
I'm not sure what news people are watching, but what I watch (DW news) covers stories documenting injustice and state sponsored murder quite often. Granted, I don't flop around on the couch in tears but I'm aware it goes on.

But, man, the cathedral fire ... that was one of the most obscene public spectacles of my lifetime. Worse than the now perfunctory social media virtual flood of recounting related stories of their own to cock a leg on a big story, some people were actually sending 'positive vibes' and 'thoughts & prayers'. To what?

I'm watching it unfold thinking there's no hope for this world to solve any issue if this inspires such an outpouring and real calamity doesn't. It's part of why there will be no substantive effort towards climate change until it's far, far too late. Can't wait for the Thoughts & Prayers on that one.
 
I have a pet theory that posits the human mental process behind ignoring risk for a perceived reward is linked with the mental gymnastics required for everything from the ability to ignore unimaginable catastrophe, such as Climate Change, to the socially-herded groupthink behind voting people totally unfit into office (if they get their cut) and grotesque selective empathy.

A good example of the latter I won’t bother to type when this graphic does a much better job -

fgrrsycxr5431.png


AOC is probably one of the most likely people in the world to have the correct empathy as far as your argument above goes.
 
I'm not sure what news people are watching, but what I watch (DW news) covers stories documenting injustice and state sponsored murder quite often. Granted, I don't flop around on the couch in tears but I'm aware it goes on.

But, man, the cathedral fire ... that was one of the most obscene public spectacles of my lifetime.

actually, concern for the cathedral is very much a collectivist/humanist sentiment. if it's not more important than the lives of millions, then human lives are not more important than those of insects.
 
Certainly not impossible she's high on empathy. As I've said before, I'm not anti-AOC. I'm anti the clown show of social media adulation surrounding any politician that hasn't accomplished anything tangible. And that doesn't include winning Twitter battles with soul-less political halfwits in the 'other party'. If she wants to do something maybe address skytrocketing alcohol, drug abuse and suicide rates of millennials since they're a big part of how she was elected.
 
actually, concern for the cathedral is very much a collectivist/humanist sentiment. if it's not more important than the lives of millions, then human lives are not more important than those of insects.

There's concern and then there's insanity. $1 Billion dollars raised with wall to wall media while everything else exponentially more crucial is ignored. It's insanity or some other nasty form of social sickness.

And all for a monument to the Crusades, subjugation of half the human race and pedophilia. And all of it based entirely on fairytales. Lovely.
 


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