A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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Chinese officials do not seem to be in any rush to negotiate trade with Trump. As Larry Kudlow, director of the president's National Economic Council finally admitted the other day: "We gave them a detailed list of asks, regarding technology for example, (which) basically hasn't changed for five or six months. The problem with the story is that they don't respond. Nothing. Nada. It's really the President and the Chinese Communist party, they have to make a decision and so far they have not, or they have made a decision not to do anything, nothing. I've never seen anything like it."
Of course he hasn't. The hope, when Trump embarked on the tit-for-tat tariffs that have led the two nations to this impasse, was that China would quickly experience the kind of pain that would send them racing immediately to the negotiating table. It didn’t happen. The last quarterly report on the Chinese economy showed that the growth had barely slowed to 6.5% (down from 6.7% in the previous quarter).
China is one of the biggest buyers of American bonds. This gives China huge leverage that it hasn't really even begun to exploit. It could start paring down its purchases of new American bonds, forcing the Treasury to offer even higher interest rates to sell them. It could even sell the $1.2 trillion in US treasuries it already holds and crush the bond market, forcing American interest rates much higher. Trump needs to sell another trillion dollars of bonds in the next 14 months to somebody because he is running up the national debt. That makes his position weak and China’s position strong.
The big question is whether Trump ever explored the possibility of these deeply interrelated issues before he plunged into his trade war. It's possible that China is waiting until the trade war really bites America, or even holding out for the next American administration, hoping for a better deal all around.
More at www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/opinions/us-china-long-game-trade-war-opinion-a
ndelman/index.html
Trump thinks America has a bigger economy than China. He thinks America can stay ahead of China. He is wrong: China has already replaced America as the driver of global change.
There is an economic metric on which China ranks first. Measured at market exchange rates, China’s GDP is still 40% smaller than America’s. However, on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis, which adjusts currencies so that a basket of goods and services is worth the same amount in different countries, the Chinese economy became the world’s largest in 2013. China’s GDP per person at PPP has risen tenfold since 1990. In general, poorer economies grow faster than rich ones, because it is easier to “catch up” when starting from a low base. Yet in other countries that were as poor as China was in 1990, purchasing power has merely doubled.
www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/10/27/the-chinese-century-is-wel
l-under-way
Maybe China won’t give in to Trump for the same reason that American banks won’t loan him money, because they are better off without his business.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway jack ... I suppose disadvantage is relative. Imagine being in your situation ... except your family is really poor, you don't have enough to eat, and everyone you know is in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, or some combination, and your schools are crap.
I'm not going to recount my childhood, but I can point to critical places where my life would have been different if I was male. I'm not talking about the subtle discrimination of expectations or social roles. I WAS TOLD, EXPLICITLY, THAT I WOULDN'T BE CONSIDERED BECAUSE I WAS FEMALE. For example, when I applied for apprenticeships in the electrical and pipe-fitters unions. Or when I inquired about going to medical school.
On the other hand, I also know I had benefits. I went to safe, if backwards, schools. My home life was safe and physically sufficient. My parents were educated and pushed us all to college. And so on.
I might have gone further, or differently, without the blatant discrimination. But I wouldn't have gotten as far without the unearned advantages.
Advantage and disadvantage is relative. Each and every person's situation is different.
My unborn kid would be in high school today if I were the woman and she were the man. But fuck that kid, and fuck me, I guess. My opinion clearly had no bearing on that situation. My son or daughter didn't have any say in the matter either.
I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face.
I'm not a victim. Maybe the world would be a better place if everybody stopped thinking of themselves as being one and just owned their situation. I know my life has gotten a lot better after I did that for myself.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
No replies to this?
Everybody had something to say about it before.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Well, the GOP has made it clear that abortion ought to be illegal. If the GOP had been in complete charge way back then, today you would be paying child support to your ex-girl friend. That's a perfectly good reason to vote for Republicans in 2018, in hopes that someday soon the party will be in complete control of all states and the national government.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No replies to this?
Everybody had something to say about it before.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Quote:www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_Abortion.htm
Support human life amendment; oppose abortion funding
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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"I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face."
Remember that song with the lines 'without love, where would you be now'? Without love ... you'd be aborted before you even drew breath. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth existence. Or you'd be abandoned to die of cold, thirst, and hunger. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth care. For example.
You seem to have a very 'me'-centric view of the universe; I happen to think the universe far larger than your extremely small existence, or mine, and that it imposes itself on you and me at every moment. That doesn't make you, or me, a victim ... or a victor. It just is. That also doesn't mean we don't have agency. We do, it's just not all-powerful.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Well, the GOP has made it clear that abortion ought to be illegal. If the GOP had been in complete charge way back then, today you would be paying child support to your ex-girl friend. That's a perfectly good reason to vote for Republicans in 2018, in hopes that someday soon the party will be in complete control of all states and the national government.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No replies to this?
Everybody had something to say about it before.
Do Right, Be Right. :)Quote:www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_Abortion.htm
Support human life amendment; oppose abortion funding
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
I've said it before, but it should be said again. I'm pro choice.
However, it shouldn't be a black and white thing. There are many shades of gray.
Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Oh damn, you've gone all philosophical. Let me throw a bomb. I've never actually know any Republican to be destroyed by one of these bombs, mostly because it only explodes in their head after they understand the explanations that Steven Pinker gives on how the mind works. Most can't understand. Then they get angry.
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face."
Remember that song with the lines 'without love, where would you be now'? Without love ... you'd be aborted before you even drew breath. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth existence. Or you'd be abandoned to die of cold, thirst, and hunger. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth care. For example.
You seem to have a very 'me'-centric view of the universe, which I happen to think is far larger than your extremely small existence, or mine, and which imposes itself on you and me at every moment. That doesn't make you, or me, a victim ... or a victor. It just is. That also doesn't mean we don't have agency. We do, it's just not all-powerful.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."
Quote:There is much more at www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/pinker.html
Killing a baby is an immoral act, and we often express our outrage at the immoral by calling it a sickness. But normal human motives are not always moral, and neonaticide does not have to be a product of malfunctioning neural circuitry or a dysfunctional upbringing. We can try to understand what would lead a mother to kill her newborn, (or seek an abortion) remembering that to understand is not necessarily to forgive. . . .
A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her current situation and only in the next few days begin to see it as a unique and wonderful individual. Her love will gradually deepen in ensuing years, in a trajectory that tracks the increasing biological value of a child (the chance that it will live to produce grandchildren) as the child proceeds through the mine field of early development.
Even when a mother in a hunter-gatherer society hardens her heart to sacrifice a newborn, her heart has not turned to stone. Anthropologists who interview these women (or their relatives, since the event is often too painful for the woman to discuss) discover that the women see the death as an unavoidable tragedy, grieve at the time and remember the child with pain all their lives.
Pinker's explanation enraged many people, but their rage doesn't mean they understand how the mind works. He described it as "immoral", but they overlooked that.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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We think of ourselves as 'human' but we are, after all, animals. We have ancient drives and responses built in to us by evolution, that overall, ensure the continuation of the species. They're not logical, or moral, or even necessarily conscious.
The newborn that stares into its care-givers eyes hasn't decided that it's going to form a neuro-hormonal bond using eye contact. The person that passes by the homeless with distaste hasn't decided that they're going to maintain solidarity with their social group by rejecting the commonly rejected 'other'. The fact that birth rates go up when resources are uncertain doesn't mean people concluded, after much thought and discussion, that increasing numbers with dwindling resources might be a good survival strategy. These are evolution's selections because of helpless infants needing constant, hands-on care; and of our survival as groups in opposition to other groups.
More philosophy, this from the Tao: heaven and earth are not humane.
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Quote:I can't imagine how painful/ frustrating that must have been.
Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.
But I'm really confused. Did you want to have your say thinking you could have swayed the final decision? Or did you feel that your ex was the ultimate decision maker, and you just wanted to be heard - to express your hopes and thoughts and feelings, no matter the outcome?
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Quote:An ancient and primitive part of the human brain took control of many voters immediately after Obama was elected. This is from www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/10/make-democrats-great-again-with
Originally posted by 1kiki:
We think of ourselves as 'human' but we are, after all, animals. We have ancient drives and responses built in to us by evolution, that overall, ensure the continuation of the species. They're not logical, or moral, or even necessarily conscious.
. . .
More philosophy, this from the Tao: heaven and earth are not humane.
out-pandering-to-trumps-angry-base/
The rate of gun sales rose rapidly after Obama was elected, nearly tripling by 2016. Confidence in the accuracy of vote counting dipped suddenly in 2008, and other polls show that trust in the honesty of elections dropped substantially during Obama’s presidency. And of course there was the sudden emergence of the Tea Party in early 2009, an outbreak of organized white resentment masquerading as a small-government uprising that was unparalleled in both its intensity and the swiftness of its birth, an astonishingly short 30 days after Obama’s inauguration.
These things all point in the same direction: that the alienation of the white working class from the party associated with racial diversity was caused by the simple presence of a black man in the White House. In the same way that racial anxiety among many whites can be triggered by nothing more than a reminder that they’ll be a minority in the future, the constant presence of a black president on their TV probably does the same.
None of this means the Democrats’ only path to victory in 2018 and 2020 is to run candidates who are white men. For one thing, there was a lot more going on during the Obama era than just simple racial triggering. Among other factors, there was the financial crisis and the appallingly overt race-mongering of Fox News, Breitbart, and other right-wing media outlets—especially around events like the Ferguson killing and subsequent protests, which produced a huge deterioration in American views of race relations during Obama’s second term.
Still, racial triggering was the core problem. Whites became more sensitive to threats to their status, and at the same time racial anxiety became more predictive of voting Republican. It didn’t happen everywhere and it didn’t happen to everyone. But it happened enough to tip a close election to the guy who most belligerently stoked that racial anxiety.
For Democrats, this is actually good news. It turns out that fanning white fragility can only get you so far: The American National Election Studies program, which has evaluated American attitudes before and after every presidential election since the 1940s, reports that racial resentment among whites has been pretty stable for decades, which suggests the “Obama effect” is likely fairly shallow. Trump’s race-baiting rants may seem like they’re consuming every pixel on the planet, but they will likely become less effective in the future because the base level of racism he’s appealing to is subsiding. In fact, his overt bigotry is already starting to cost him more supporters than he gains from it.
More at www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/10/make-democrats-great-again-with
out-pandering-to-trumps-angry-base/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:Quote:I can't imagine how painful/ frustrating that must have been.
Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.
But I'm really confused. Did you want to have your say thinking you could have swayed the final decision? Or did you feel that your ex was the ultimate decision maker, and you just wanted to be heard - to express your hopes and thoughts and feelings, no matter the outcome?
It happened so quick, I don't even really know what to think about it all these years later, honestly.
I wasn't a "kid" at the time. I mean, my dad was older when I was born, but I was older than my mom was. But I was living in my grandma's basement barely making any money working odd jobs for cash (after I lost the best job of my life). I was in no position to be a good father at the time, and we certainly didn't plan it.
I don't know what she was looking for when she broke the news to me. To be honest, I probably didn't handle it very well and I didn't give her what she was looking for. I wasn't enthusiastic, but I didn't freak out or get angry or anything. I didn't say anything, really. If I had to liken my initial reaction to any other event in my life, it would be when I was told about my situation with my teeth. A sort of instantaneous detachment from the world and my own life. I'm sure you have certain "flash points" in your life that you look back on and regret how you handled something. This is one of them.
We didn't talk for almost a week. There wasn't text messaging like there is today, and I didn't even have a cell phone at the time. The next time we spoke she said "You know that thing we were talking about before? I took care of it."
My memory of the events after that are a bit foggy. Where I wasn't angry before, I was seeing red. Truth be told, I'm glad she broke the news to me over the phone. I don't know what would have happened face to face.
I never saw her or talked to her again after that phone call.
And the really sick thing is, I can't even say for sure that any of it was even real. All the internal shit I put myself through over the years by not sharing this happening with anyone until a few years back tore me up inside. She might have just been fucking lying about the whole thing.
I can't tell you what I really wanted out of the situation. Second brings up a good point that I could very well have been paying child support for one third of my life at this point had she not done what she did. Don't think I haven't felt a lot of guilt about being somewhat thankful for that over the years too, being the cheapass that I am. This certainly would have completely changed my life. Maybe I would have gotten my shit together and we'd still be married to this day and I'd be going to the kids sporting events or watching them in plays? Who knows what could have been.
I was just a non-entity. Because I have a penis, my opinion wasn't even asked.
All I could do all of these years is dwell on it and feel guilt about it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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