2020 Presidential Election

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

As i mentioned ion a previous post, the US suicide rate has increased 30% since 2000:

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study on Friday.

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.

Yesterday i was on the Galveston Daily News website and i was reading the comments under a story on projected sea level rise, and 90% of commenters (most of whom can see the Gulf of Mexico from their houses) were calling climate change a liberal hoax perpetuated by money-hungry academics.

The reason US evangelicals are so rabid about Israel is because they need for the geopolitics of the situation to go a certain way so the apocalypse and rapture can hurry up and get here.

What i am saying is that the "dark cancer" is a death wish that has taken over about half of the population.

Our species as a whole is suicidal.

We've always had a suicide switch hiding inside of us-- you can see this in the apocalypse prophecies that feature in so many religions. Those are there because we know there has to be an ending to our story, because we also know, instinctively and subconsciously, that our existence is unsustainable-- just the mathematical fact of exponential population growth within a finite environment has a bad ending coded in from the beginning.

I think the suicide switch in our evolutionary makeup was triggered in 1945 when we dropped the first nuclear bomb. Our ending began that day-- as soon as it became possible for man to destroy life on earth, it also became inevitable on a long enough timeline. We know that, deep down, and we've been waiting for the other shoe to drop ever since.

What's happening now is that more and more people are tired of the suspense and just want to get it over with.

That is why we have Trump/Brexit/Marine le Pen, Bolsnaro, etc. If enough countries slide off the rails and into nationalism, the cooperation we need to save ourselves becomes impossible.

Deep down, a lot of people want that. We can't save ourselves without some discomfort and a big slice of the population would rather we all die instead of cutting consumption of anything at all.

Its not Rs vs Ds, or progressives vs liberals-- it's Team Apocalypse vs Team Carry On-- except all of the infighting and purity testing we have in certain corners of Team Carry On makes me think the suicide bug has bit a lot of us, too. Like, let's take a decade-long time-out right here, with one minute to midnight on the Doomsday Clock, and throw a couple of elections so we can break the back of the two-party system.

I would like to enter Australia's election result today into the suicidal species evidence list

[C0LLETTE]

For those who believe that "liberalism" is the sad slow death of us all,
I'd like to recommend reading Adam Gopnik’s " A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism".

Or, you can follow this link:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...ld-embrace-it/

If you get over the word "Canada" and read this opinion piece, maybe there is a healthy conversation for us to have here.

Adam Gopnik is Canadian/American and a staff writer for the New Yorker.

[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by C0LLETTE

For those who believe that "liberalism" is the sad slow death of us all,
I'd like to recommend reading Adam Gopnik’s " A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism".

Or, you can follow this link:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opin...ld-embrace-it/

If you get over the word "Canada" and read this opinion piece, maybe there is a healthy conversation for us to have here.

Adam Gopnik is Canadian/American and a staff writer for the New Yorker.

That's a very good news agency website out of Canada, C0LLETTE. I'll check up on that book recommendation for Adam Gopnik, for my summer reading adventure. Thank you!

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Lately, I've been thinking, due to really shady maneuvers by the GOP (in any Republican controlled US state or even in US Congress) to upend the lives of women and case law concerning Women's Rights and upending Brown vs Board of Education, and shoving the US-Supreme Court to the far right, that maybe it might be a good idea to match the level of the insanity we see by DC Admin and, in general, the GOP (wasn't that refreshing to see a US HOR GOP representative part with party politics and call out that horrible monster in DC???), is to f*cking smash the glass-ceiling and elect not only a woman to be US President, but US Vice-President too.

Here's what came to mind, the other day:

US President: Elizabeth Warren.
US Vice President: Kamala Harris
US Attorney General: Adam Schiff
Governor Jay Inslee -- Chief of EPA.

(and the list goes on....)

While we're at it, a woman should be nominated to head the VA, The Pentagon and find a decorated staff of US Veteran Women to take positions in Foreign Affairs.

It's about time that the US throws it's weight behind a TOP heavy cabinet of women in VIP positions in Washington, DC.

I'm thinking positive by dreaming really BIG dreams and manifesting them into reality. It can happen, right? I definitely think so. The climate is perfect for the proverbial ceiling to be smashed.

[Martina]

I would be happy if Kamala, Warren, or Gillibrand were elected. They are qualified, tough folks. They are true liberals, one hopes not of the HIRE MORE WOMEN GUARDS type.

But I am old enough to vividly recall Margaret Thatcher, whose legacy in Great Britain is child hunger that almost matches the U.S. rate. I don't care what gender or race the person is. Or age. I just care if they can see the truth and have the strength to do something about it.

If we have to wait for racism to go away before we can fix the planet, were doomed.

[Andrea]

Originally Posted by Martina

I would be happy if Kamala, Warren, or Gillibrand were elected. They are qualified, tough folks. They are true liberals, one hopes not of the HIRE MORE WOMEN GUARDS type.

But I am old enough to vividly recall Margaret Thatcher, whose legacy in Great Britain is child hunger that almost matches the U.S. rate. I don't care what gender or race the person is. Or age. I just care if they can see the truth and have the strength to do something about it.

If we have to wait for racism to go away before we can fix the planet, were doomed.

I may be overthinking this but I am wondering why you feel it acceptable to call candidate Kamala Harris by her first name but address candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand by their last names.

[C0LLETTE]

What I like about "liberal thinkers and philosophy" is the strength to remain aspirational in the face of angry necrophilic reminders of past failures.
So what? Keep going, look ahead.

[Martina]

Originally Posted by Andrea

I may be overthinking this but I am wondering why you feel it acceptable to call candidate Kamala Harris by her first name but address candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand by their last names.

I lived in California when she was AG, and that's how people referred to her. Not the Press, but ordinary folk discussing politics. Not sure why. But that's how I think of her now. She did a lot of good work as AG and was often in the Press.

Edited to add. Just got an email from her campaign soliciting donations. A quote:

Your past support has made our campaign possible -- and we’re counting on you to stand with Kamala in the fights ahead. Can you add another donation to Kamala’s campaign today?

[C0LLETTE]

I'd like to get a Beto O'Rourke tee shirt. I'm starting to feel that it will be a "rare collectible " quite soon.

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by Andrea

I may be overthinking this but I am wondering why you feel it acceptable to call candidate Kamala Harris by her first name but address candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand by their last names.

i noticed this about Hillary, too. It seemed gendered but then we call Bernie and Beto "Bernie and Beto." Also i say "Mayor Pete" and "Julian." I do say "Kamala" but i also say "Warren." I think i call everyone else by their last name

[C0LLETTE]

Trump has long said he'd like to have a Roy Cohn by his side but I believe he has found a Lavrenty Beria in William Barr.
If history is any lesson, Barr might want to be cautious putting all his eggs in that basket.