The real Jacks were the friends we made along the way.
Zoso
quote:
Originally posted by Sushipunk
In a way, we are all Jack.
I both agree and understand, my friend. I support this, and although I ed up the naming during quoting, I stand by my humble attempts at rational answers.
Also: I am Jack's complete lack of surprise (TM).
JEO
quote:
Originally posted by Sushipunk
Well, for starters, it'll be nice to have someone in office that can speak in complete, coherent sentences.
Is this one or two layers of irony? :D but I think what you're saying highlights my point. I get the feeling that not many people who voted for Biden – of whom many just voted against Trump, not so much for Biden, at least among first-time voters – can name anything concrete they would want changed, unless it's something obviously utopian for now, like UBI. I think they just wanted their head buffoon to be slightly less of a bigot.
quote:
Originally posted by Sykonee
That's the sad bit of it though, isn't it? It's not like Trump was the cause of a bunch of in the US, just a symptom of many of the underlying issues in that nation. Him becoming President pretty much shined a giant light on it, allowing it to bubble to the surface like worms in the rain. Remember that even though Joe won with a record popular vote, Trump still has around 71 *million* votes himself, also higher than any prior President.
The rot afflicting America remains, and I highly doubt these Democrats are gonna' have the ability to enact much change, especially with a deadlocked Senate still very possible.
Putting it bluntly, and from a non-US standpoint, the huge area between California and New York seems like a forgotten wasteland that isn't really anyone's concern, with some exceptions here and there. I also wonder whether any group of leaders will ever be able to somehow connect these areas with the coasts. I think the USA is simply too big to be a unified whole (if it's ever been that in the first place) in any meaningful sense anymore.
Also thinking that the Democrats maybe timed their win badly. If the economy is truly gonna go down the gutter in the coming months and years due to COVID-19, with the Democrats ultimately having to take the blame since it all got worse on their watch, be it their fault or not, the swing back to the other side in the next election could be over-compensated. Before that, if they're gonna introduce more of the lockdowns or curfews that Trump failed to implement, there's bound to be a backlash quite soon. I mean, we've already seen that happen in countries from whom I expected way more than I do from the United States.
Sykonee
quote:
Originally posted by JEO
Putting it bluntly, and from a non-US standpoint, the huge area between California and New York seems like a forgotten wasteland that isn't really anyone's concern, with some exceptions here and there. I also wonder whether any group of leaders will ever be able to somehow connect these areas with the coasts. I think the USA is simply too big to be a unified whole (if it's ever been that in the first place) in any meaningful sense anymore.
It isn't so much the 'coastal divide', as the urban-rural divide that defines the cultural schism in the US. Most of the major cities throughout the country, even the places that vote ended up Red on the map, still voted Blue. Even in staunch Red States like Wyoming had Blue in some counties. For all intents, the US is a sea of red with many blue islands spread about, mostly on the coastal regions.
Which is why if there ever WERE to be another Civil War, how exactly would that play out? It's not like one group of States want to secede - the cultural divide is within every state regardless. If the "Reds" were to win, what would they win, exactly? Not the cities, since they don't live there.
Zoso
I'll post one final thought on the "what do you Americans desire?" theme before I call it a night: when it comes to healthcare, I am left of Bernie. I've been married for almost 17 years to a wonderful mother of 2 that had the "audacity" to be born premature, and, as a result, with 2 bad heart valves. Thanks to our private, for-profit healthcare and insurance system, I vividly recall the search, even in our mid-20s, for someone willing to underwrite my wife a private health insurance plan. We finally found a company, a couple of hundred miles away, in Nashville that was willing when no one else would. And we paid extra for it, and then some. Over two years ago, she had the misfortune, thanks to maternal genetics, to be diagnosed with MCHL, or Multiple Cellularity Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We are STILL, as I like to joke, "paying for cancer". We have 5 separate monthly payments on medical bills. She also has an auto-immune disorder that causes her immune system to attack her optic nerves. She will face the choice of 1.) literally going blind or 2.) facing renal failure as a result of massive steroid doses to treat 1. All while paying through the nose and negotiating each year to keep an insurance plan we can "afford".
To say I an therefore biased and bitter when it comes to healthcare in this country is an understatement. We are going to have to decide, as a nation, whether or not healthcare is a fundamental right alongside such things as free speech/religion/press/firearms or a luxury for those that "work hard enough to afford it," essentially. :whip:
JEO
quote:
Originally posted by Zoso
I also hope for the opportunity to restore our presence on the world stage. Not in any sort of Republican "might is right" or military manner, but as in a reason and science-based nation that is ready and willing to contribute to a multitude of issues: climate change; disease research and prevention; a bastion of human rights advocacy; a nation that is a "melting pot" of peoples, beliefs, and countries of origin; a leader on the world stage. I understand that this may sound hopelessly altruistic and maybe even impossibly ironic, but these are some of my hopes.
I can't imagine what it's like to be an American, as looked at and judged by a member of a nation state outside our borders - I simply lack the common frame of reference needed to understand it.
While I don't really subscribe to this idea of a melting pot of beliefs being possible in the extent your country actually is, I think your country's still the lead on almost any kind of progress in the west, no matter what happens in your country's politics. Don't be disheartened just for having had Donald Trump as your president. That's peanuts in the grand scheme of things. As I understand it, a single state, namely California, has done more for the development of hybrid vehicles than any single country in the world by creating a market for them that Japan then supplied for.
My question isn't that much about whether you're a pick-up-driving, god-fearing, half-militant open carry enthusiast, I know you're not, but whether you and some Californian actually have enough to do with each other for you to have any common factors and for you, as a whole, to be called the USA. This question is on my mind a lot recently because of the EU and the populists' fear-mongering of it chicken walking its way to becoming an actual federation.
quote:
Originally posted by Zoso
Though I grew up here in the predominantly racist and white Southeast, in a very rural area, I grew up with intelligent, and highly (for the area) educated parents. I was raised in a secular, non-racist home. I was raised to be independent in my thoughts and views. I was raised in the most non-racist environment possible. I was raised to appreciate my fellow humans with both empathy and sympathy. I am, probably, the antithesis of what the world/US perceives as a "white, Southern cracka".
Why is it that I don't really buy the idea of the mentioned area being predominantly racist? I just find it so hard to believe that this one area still so strongly harbours those attitudes that have been beaten to a pulp in popular culture for decades. It feels to me like you've bought this idea of your area despite it not being true and are fighting against it for nothing, though I might be and very probably am wrong. This just adds to the allure though. When I finally make my way to the US, I will definitely visit the southern-most states and show you people what an almost literally white person actually looks like.
JEO
quote:
Originally posted by Zoso
Healthcare
Well, ok.. Exhibit A on where the USA isn't the leader on progress.
SYSTEM-J
quote:
Originally posted by JEO
What things do you guys in the US (or anywhere, I guess) expect or hope to change after Trump, though?
They now have a leader who has some sense of the responsibility that comes with being the most powerful nation on Earth. So they might at least join in with global efforts on things like environmentalism, trade and coronavirus, rather than doing like exiting the Paris climate accord because "it's not fair on us" or buying the entire world's supply of remdesivir and letting every other country go itself.
I've no doubt the CIA will continue to do dirty underhand across the globe and the military-industrial complex will still dictate foreign policy and big corporations and billionaires will still be allowed to unfairly hoard wealth. I don't think anyone expects Biden to fix all that stuff. But in terms of basic approach, Donald Trump is literally about as self-interested and unempathetic as a human being can be. That capacity to remorselessly bully and exploit others for his own gain is pretty much his only killer edge. It's what he owes all his success to, and he certainly has no other qualities that make him a good political leader.
At least with Joe Biden you have an experienced career politician who understands his job and understands foreign policy. Already there's talk that his election will force my country to negotiate a proper Brexit trade agreement with the EU, because Biden won't accept a No Deal departure that threatens the Good Friday agreement. He's not even in the White House yet and he's making other countries grow up and act more responsibly. The world, collectively, needs the US to act like the adult in the room. And it can only do that if its leader fulfils the basic qualities of competence, cooperation and responsibility.
Zoso
quote:
Originally posted by JEO
While I don't really subscribe to this idea of a melting pot of beliefs being possible in the extent your country actually is, I think your country's still the lead on almost any kind of progress in the west, no matter what happens in your country's politics. Don't be disheartened just for having had Donald Trump as your president. That's peanuts in the grand scheme of things. As I understand it, a single state, namely California, has done more for the development of hybrid vehicles than any single country in the world by creating a market for them that Japan then supplied for.
My question isn't that much about whether you're a pick-up-driving, god-fearing, half-militant open carry enthusiast, I know you're not, but whether you and some Californian actually have enough to do with each other for you to have any common factors and for you, as a whole, to be called the USA. This question is on my mind a lot recently because of the EU and the populists' fear-mongering of it chicken walking its way to becoming an actual federation.
Why is it that I don't really buy the idea of the mentioned area being predominantly racist? I just find it so hard to believe that this one area still so strongly harbours those attitudes that have been beaten to a pulp in popular culture for decades. It feels to me like you've bought this idea of your area despite it not being true and are fighting against it for nothing, though I might be and very probably am wrong. This just adds to the allure though. When I finally make my way to the US, I will definitely visit the southern-most states and show you people what an almost literally white person actually looks like.
That is the million dollar question, isn't it? I honestly don't know the answer. I would like to think that for me, personally, I do have enough in common with the "progressive Californian" to call us united. I can't speak for the large swath of red in between, however. I would like to think that yes, when push comes to shove, we do have enough in common to remain united. But I also acknowledge that we've let our political parties (especially the Republicans) become so polarized that we refer to the other party as "the enemy," and by god nothing good can come from that.
Zoso
If you haven't seen it, Dave Chapelle's opening monologue on SNL is poignant genius and sums up in about 16 minutes some of the stuff the US has to get its arms around and deal with.
Lews
quote:
Originally posted by JEO
What things do you guys in the US (or anywhere, I guess) expect or hope to change after Trump, though?
Well, for starters, the US will no longer have a president who:
encourages China to put Muslims into concentration camps;
praises war criminals;
argues the US should have stolen Iraqi oil;
praises neo-Nazis;
tries to extort money from other countries;
praises authoritarians;
abuses the presidency to enlarge his own bank ac ount;
starts needless trade wars;
lies repeatedly;
and is completely incompetent.
etc etc etc
Have people become so worn down that they forget just how absolutely insane Trump is and how horrible?
I disagree with Biden about many things, and I'm very concerned about the woke/AOC/progressive crowd, but having someone sane and decent is a good ing change in my opinion.
JEO
quote:
Originally posted by Lews
Have people become so worn down that they forget just how absolutely insane Trump is and how horrible?
