A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy
Dystopian titles are often nothing more than marketing tools, but such a title is necessary for this book. How America Lost Its Mind describes the sorry state of our democracy at this early point in the twenty-first century. The corruption of thought, information, and common sense is eroding governing institutions and traditions that took more than two centuries and ten generations of Americans to build.
Americans have lost touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with the facts. As I show in the first chapter, today’s level of misinformation is unprecedented and is a far greater danger to our democracy than the long-standing problem of an uninformed citizenry. The uninformed know what they don’t know, whereas the misinformed think they know something but don’t know it, which leads them into senseless decisions. The second chapter examines the link between misinformation and partisanship. On almost every issue, misinformation is concentrated in the minds of either Republicans or Democrats. It has reached the point where, although Republicans and Democrats live in the same country, their minds reside in different ones, making it nearly impossible for them to understand each other, much less resolve their differences.
Age-old incentives—the lure of power, celebrity, and money—have corrupted the media system that is the source of our information. Media dysfunction began decades ago but is now careening out of control. One set of information corruptors, whom I call the “disruptors” and discuss in the third chapter, lust for power and have weaponized information, twisting it to serve their political and personal agendas. Another set, whom I call the “performers,” lust after celebrity and thrive in a mutual-referential world of caricatures and inane chatter. Their role in misinforming us is explained in the fourth chapter. Then there are the “marketers,” who are the subject of the fifth chapter. Their lust is money, and they peddle what sells, no matter how trivial, inaccurate, or distracting. Collectively, these media and political actors have scrambled our minds. We’ve reached a point where we think that nonsense is knowledge. It’s a dangerous position for a democracy. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt noted decades ago, demagoguery is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
The forces that have brought us to this point are powerful and will not bend easily. But I discuss in the final chapter what could be done to bring about change. It would require us to wrest power from the ideologues and mind twisters and entrust it to level-headed leaders and reliable sources. It would also require us as citizens to accept our role in the misinformation crisis. We can’t have a thriving citizen democracy if citizens fail to accept the responsibilities of citizenship.
www.amazon.com/How-America-Lost-Mind-Distinguished/dp/0806164328/
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/02/12/when-balance-comes-at-the-exp
ense-of-the-truth/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
I agree with this.
However, it's not saying what you think it's saying.
Democrats run the media and celebrity. The misinformation campaign is a strictly partisan thing today, and it's a tool of the Democrats.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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GEEK SPEAK
Fox hits local ‘Firefly’ group with cease and desist
https://blog.mysanantonio.com/geekspeak/2011/04/fox-hits-local-firefly
-group-with-cease-and-desist/
T 
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
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In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia who wanted to quickly end the war, issued a proclamation to free enslaved Black people if they defected from the colonies and fought for the British army. In response, George Washington revised the policy that restricted Black persons (free or enslaved) from joining his Continental army. His reversal was based in a convergence of his interests: competing with a growing British military, securing the slave economy, and increasing labor needs for the Continental army. When enslaved persons left the plantation, this caused serious social and economic unrest in the colonies. These defections were encouragement for many white plantation owners to join the Patriotic cause even if they previously held reservations.
Washington also saw other benefits in Black enlistment: White revolutionary soldiers only fought in three- to four-month increments and returned to their farms or plantation, but many Black soldiers could serve longer terms. The need for the Black soldier was essential for the war effort, and the need to win the war became greater than racial or racist ideology.
Interests converged with those of Black revolutionary soldiers as well. Once the American colonies promised freedom, about a quarter of the Continental army became Black; before that, more Black people defected to the British military for a chance to be free. Black revolutionary soldiers understood the stakes of the war and realized that they could also benefit and leave bondage. As historian Gary Nash has said, the Black revolutionary soldier “can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to a place, not to a people, but to a principle.”
Black people played a dual role — service with the American forces and fleeing to the British — both for freedom. The notion of the Black Patriot is a misused term. In many ways, while the majority of the whites were fighting in the American Revolution, Black revolutionary soldiers were fighting the “African Americans’ Revolution.”
More at www.vox.com/identities/2020/2/18/21134644/black-history-month-2020-myt
hs
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 THG:
GEEK SPEAK
Fox hits local ‘Firefly’ group with cease and desist
https://blog.mysanantonio.com/geekspeak/2011/04/fox-hits-local-firefly
-group-with-cease-and-desist/
T
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
From 2011?
You'd have to call Disney in 2020 for permission. Kaylee is a Disney Princess now.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Bernie Sanders has refused to release his medical records even though (a) he promised to do so, and (b) he’s 78 years old and recently had a heart attack, making him the exact kind of person whose medical history is especially salient in a presidential election. Will this pay off? It seems like it: Sanders is soaring in the polls. The price of concealing his medical history is — in his estimation, anyway — smaller than the price he’d pay for whatever his medical history shows.
In 2016 Donald Trump refused to release his income tax records even though (a) he had promised to do so, and (b) he’s a real estate billionaire, the exact kind of person whose financial history is especially salient in a presidential election. This paid off: no one really cared, apparently, and Trump became president. The price of concealing his financial history was smaller than the price he would have paid for whatever that history would have shown.
Presidential candidates are learning that releasing records of any kind is all downside. If the records show that everything is OK, no one cares and it buys you nothing. But if the records show a problem, it could blow your candidacy to pieces. The voters will literally give you no reason to do it. Voters might want to think about that more clearly because NOT showing your record is absolute evidence you are a crook and a liar.
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 second:
Bernie Sanders has refused to release his medical records even though (a) he promised to do so, and (b) he’s 78 years old and recently had a heart attack, making him the exact kind of person whose medical history is especially salient in a presidential election. Will this pay off? It seems like it: Sanders is soaring in the polls. The price of concealing his medical history is — in his estimation, anyway — smaller than the price he’d pay for whatever his medical history shows.
In 2016 Donald Trump refused to release his income tax records even though (a) he had promised to do so, and (b) he’s a real estate billionaire, the exact kind of person whose financial history is especially salient in a presidential election. This paid off: no one really cared, apparently, and Trump became president. The price of concealing his financial history was smaller than the price he would have paid for whatever that history would have shown.
Presidential candidates are learning that releasing records of any kind is all downside. If the records show that everything is OK, no one cares and it buys you nothing. But if the records show a problem, it could blow your candidacy to pieces. The voters will literally give you no reason to do it. Voters might want to think about that more clearly because NOT showing your record is absolute evidence you are a crook and a liar.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Should probably change the laws about that. Dontcha think?
Given that Bernie's doing it now, you would think it would be a bi-partisan effort, at least for the president.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:I have dealt with plenty of crooks and liars. What they were doing was illegal, but that didn't stop them and laws/courts/police in the United States are excruciatingly slow and unhelpful. Ordinary people can, all by themselves, handle these crooks and liars by not giving them money, but about 99% of the time ordinary people do give them the money. It's like they have no brains or even ordinary good sense. Similarly, ordinary voters can handle crooks and liars by not giving them their vote. But, once again, 99% of voters don't exercise their god given good sense and, instead, vote for the crook and the liar anyway, as if the voter was helpless and had no sense and no wits.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Should probably change the laws about that. Dontcha think?
Given that Bernie's doing it now, you would think it would be a bi-partisan effort, at least for the president.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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There might be one or two here who aren't crooks and liars, but only one independent enough to get the full-on leper-of-the-year treatment.
And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better?
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Is the two-party system good for democracy? A Debate: Yascha Mounk & Norman Ornstein vs. Lee Drutman & Katherine Gehl
At the beginning of the video there is an amusing talk "US History Can Be Fun" about how violent Senators once were about defending slavery. The Senators lowered the level of violence in the 20th Century to legislative maneuvers keeping blacks in their proper place, but it never went completely away.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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America’s monopoly problem, explained by your internet bill
We should be asking the government and corporate America how we got here. Instead, we just keep handing over our money.
Seriously, be mad about your internet bill.
In 2019, New York University economist Thomas Philippon did a deep dive into market concentration and monopolies in The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets. And one of his touch points for the book is the internet. Looking at the data, he found that the United States has fallen behind other developed economies in broadband penetration and that prices are significantly higher. In 2017, the average monthly cost of broadband in America was $66.17; in France, it was $38.10, in Germany, $35.71, and in South Korea, $29.90. How did this happen? In his view, a lot of it comes down to competition — or, rather, lack thereof.
That’s where the government could come in by regulating the network or forcing the company that built it to lease out parts of it to rivals. As Philippon notes, that’s what happened in France — an incumbent carrier was compelled to lease out the “last mile” of its network — basically, the last bit of cable that gets to your hours or apartment building — and therefore letting competitors have a chance at also appealing to customers.
In the US, however, just a few big companies, often without overlap, control much of the telecom industry, and the result is high prices and uneven connectivity.
Experts and advocates have laid out a range of ideas for restoring healthy competition in the economy. Some of it would entail new laws, which, given the current state of affairs in Washington, seems unlikely — Congress can barely agree to fund the government, let alone enact a major overhaul of the workings of the US economy. But it has happened in the past. “What happened in the New Deal was a systemic attack on every aspect of the old order, and the old order was somewhat similar to what we have now,” Stoller noted.
Competition is lacking across countless industries, including baby formula, agriculture, candy, beer, just to name some examples. When you look, monopolies and oligopolies (meaning instead of one dominant company, there are a few) are everywhere. They’re a systemic feature of the economy.
More at www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/18/21126347/antitrust-monopolies-internet
-telecommunications-cheerleading
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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