Original RI quotes only

[Nordic]

Another from JR:

Wisconsin is a start because it's the first time that protesters didn't just go home and watch to see if they got TV coverage.

[RocketMan]

Fuck Stewart. He was much better back when I was more naive.

[Jeff]

This is an international case of someone finding a bag of money on the street. Everybody's gonna jump for it, only try to not look like they're jumping for it.

[LolaB]

Nordic wrote:

What eyeno said. Participating in the current system? It's a waste of time, and simply perpetuates the same flawed system. I am reminded of people in Vegas sitting at slot machines. It's a game, it's been figured out, it's rigged, and they let enough people "win" to keep people coming in to literally GIVE THEM money.

Leave the slot machines alone.

Yes, ripping it up by the roots and starting over is the only way it's gonna change. OR America goes down in flames, which I think is far more likely, and will happen sooner, than Americans getting off their asses and simply ADMITTING that their system doesn't work.

It's much easier to think we can simply "consume" our way out of this by choosing better candidates. You know, it's like eating organic! It'll save the earth. No, sorry, you have terminal cancer. No antioxidants in the world is gonna save your ass at this point.

Seriously.

Justdrew's position is one of "hope". And that's all it is. Hope is what strings people along, hope is the carrot we follow as we head for the cliff.

Take your eyes off the carrot.

[Jeff]

The majority of consumption in consumer society is vicarious. It is enacted by watching actors playing rich folk consuming things on TV.

[82_28]

Very interesting. This could be the mental health version of Turbo Tax.

[Jeff]

This was a ridiculous theater made out of C_w's volunteering to do a thankless garbage control job that actually has only minimal authority and the severity of the reaction is obviously attributable in part to pavlovian conditioning against even the simplest avowals of feminism without apologies. Also, completely imagined ego-bruising.

[barracuda]

The circumstances of my life have made me a pessimist, but I'm an angry, unresigned one.

[Allegro]

PLEASE NOTE: The adversity specifically faced by girls and women at every stage of life, in multiple spheres, in every culture on earth, for all recorded history is NOT mutually exclusive of the adversity specifically faced by boys and men at every stage of life, in multiple spheres, in every culture on earth, for all recorded history.

Thanks for listening!

I did and I will. No doubt, easily and decidedly .

[JackRiddler]

Feminism is just a label. There is no feminist organization. There is no heirarchy of feminists. There are no rules on how to become one, or remain one. No written agenda with bullet points and score cards. What 'feminism' is shorthand for is the myriad movements which - over the course of a long time and with no real coherent structure - gained women and other causes a lot of status & legal protection which before feminism (or the Women's Movement) didn't exist. The so-called negative results of the gains women have made are now pinned on to 'feminism' as if the whole of society didn't actually participate in making the changes. It's an easy mark.

To view 'feminism,' as one whole thing in itself, with suspicion is like viewing 'science' that way.

[JackRiddler]

It's always amusing when people go on as though parapolitics and the deep state are politically neutral subjects, when in one respect they're really the story of how the far right has screwed, and is continuing to screw, the rest of us.

[WakeUpAndLive]

Rule by the best (or brightest or especially meritorious)?

The problem is not determining who they might be, or what form they should exact their rule.

The problem is our willingness and desire to be ruled.

I will not be more amenable to coercive authoritarianism because the authoritarian has been deemed to be exceptionally qualified to expect compliance from us.

[MacCruiskeen]

sometimes when the phone rings and it's a wrong number I worry the voice on the other end will say something like "the banjo broke the foxtrot springs" and I'll either go out on a rampage or become a recluse arbiter elegantiarum of half melted Ken dolls.

[Hammer of Los]

Yeah, I agree that if you start saying too much conspiracy stuff you should throw in some fake moon landing, and ufo abductions, just to keep TPTB off yer arse! Those in the know, wink wink, will work around the far out stuff and stick to the meat, but if you think you have a spook in for dinner you can just go conspiro and throw them off.

[crikkett]

...democracy relies on people finding common ground, not absolute agreement on every issue. though it can be a bitter pill at times.

Word.