I'm right there with you - what we've got is not a democracy, so the increased corruption isn't actually spoiling anything. This is the only starting point at which a person can retain their sanity (or something like it.) We are starting at less than zero. But what can we actually do? I don't know. I tried going to DSA meetings and it just seemed...feeble. Or perhaps I'm feeble. What do you do with your anger? I mean you, personally, not the rhetorical you (whoever he is.)
I can't even go to a DSA meeting. I tried to join the local chapter for two years but never heard back from anybody, and then maybe six months ago I went to their website and the domain name had been purchased by a Malaysian online sports betting outfit. I couldn't get any response from the national org either until I threatened to shop a story about the situation. They tell me I'm a member at large, and I should consider forming my own chapter. I don't feel especially valued.
This is it, as far as doing things with anger. Well, this and the ketamine treatments.
Regarding your previous question about nightlife here, we do have places tourists don't generally frequent, and we have some tourist-centric joints that are nevertheless pretty nice, like a couple of beachside bars/restaurants, but it can't be considered a truly cosmopolitan city. A friend of mine moved here from New York City many years ago, and her husband lasted about six months before terminal culture shock sent him fleeing back. She met a nice girl and they moved to upstate New York with her daughter.
In a system as corrupted by/dependent on other people's money as this one, a less-damning interpretation might be that once people position themselves to win an election they maintain it rather than having the prospect they an unpositioned newcomer will run and lose the seat. The degree to which that constitutes a narcissistic indulgence is another discussion.
Framing matters though. It's always troubled me that the people with the more objective, less beguiled-by-the-dysfunctional-system-under-discussion commenters end up placing people in a double-bind, where they're forced choose between stopping their ears/maintaining their worship of their favourite political figures, or listening/realizing they were wrong the ten-thousand previous moments where they faced that sort of choice.
I see this as one of the greatest weaknesses of modern political discourse, magnified by reliance on soundbites/performative identity, rather than thoughtful analysis of delineated positions--even if the latter were performed by trusted experts rather than voters themselves.
I have some sympathy for the longevity argument; one doesn't want to see a fresh crop coming in every year or two and leaving all the institutional knowledge to staff people and lobbyists. But Feinstein isn't doing anything job-related, just serving out her time to nobody's benefit but her and the Senate GOP, and Ginsburg screwed the pooch bigly. I wish Biden hadn't run, but he's there now so whaddaya gonna do.
I'm sort of an irreligious Manichean sound-bite guy. Not very good at framing things other than to suit myself, I think.
The gerontocracy problems you cite are all just consequences of this problem, that we have let our govt devolve away from "a govt of laws and not of men".
The underlying problem is that so much hangs on exactly who the president is, and who the SCOTUS justices are. Had we not, over centuries, by inertia in letting destructive norms gunk up the actual rules by which govt works, let SCOTUS and the presidency get as powerful as they are today, it would not matter much at all who exactly the justices or the president might be at any given time.
The actual written rules in the founding document give Congress all the final say on every question. It is only in the power vacuum created by the progressive shirking of successive Congresses of their duty to run the govt that the presidency and SCOTUS have grown in power outside all bounds, to the point that one or just a handful of incumbents can use their offices to frustrate democracy.
I'm right there with you - what we've got is not a democracy, so the increased corruption isn't actually spoiling anything. This is the only starting point at which a person can retain their sanity (or something like it.) We are starting at less than zero. But what can we actually do? I don't know. I tried going to DSA meetings and it just seemed...feeble. Or perhaps I'm feeble. What do you do with your anger? I mean you, personally, not the rhetorical you (whoever he is.)
I can't even go to a DSA meeting. I tried to join the local chapter for two years but never heard back from anybody, and then maybe six months ago I went to their website and the domain name had been purchased by a Malaysian online sports betting outfit. I couldn't get any response from the national org either until I threatened to shop a story about the situation. They tell me I'm a member at large, and I should consider forming my own chapter. I don't feel especially valued.
This is it, as far as doing things with anger. Well, this and the ketamine treatments.
Regarding your previous question about nightlife here, we do have places tourists don't generally frequent, and we have some tourist-centric joints that are nevertheless pretty nice, like a couple of beachside bars/restaurants, but it can't be considered a truly cosmopolitan city. A friend of mine moved here from New York City many years ago, and her husband lasted about six months before terminal culture shock sent him fleeing back. She met a nice girl and they moved to upstate New York with her daughter.
In a system as corrupted by/dependent on other people's money as this one, a less-damning interpretation might be that once people position themselves to win an election they maintain it rather than having the prospect they an unpositioned newcomer will run and lose the seat. The degree to which that constitutes a narcissistic indulgence is another discussion.
Framing matters though. It's always troubled me that the people with the more objective, less beguiled-by-the-dysfunctional-system-under-discussion commenters end up placing people in a double-bind, where they're forced choose between stopping their ears/maintaining their worship of their favourite political figures, or listening/realizing they were wrong the ten-thousand previous moments where they faced that sort of choice.
I see this as one of the greatest weaknesses of modern political discourse, magnified by reliance on soundbites/performative identity, rather than thoughtful analysis of delineated positions--even if the latter were performed by trusted experts rather than voters themselves.
I have some sympathy for the longevity argument; one doesn't want to see a fresh crop coming in every year or two and leaving all the institutional knowledge to staff people and lobbyists. But Feinstein isn't doing anything job-related, just serving out her time to nobody's benefit but her and the Senate GOP, and Ginsburg screwed the pooch bigly. I wish Biden hadn't run, but he's there now so whaddaya gonna do.
I'm sort of an irreligious Manichean sound-bite guy. Not very good at framing things other than to suit myself, I think.
The gerontocracy problems you cite are all just consequences of this problem, that we have let our govt devolve away from "a govt of laws and not of men".
The underlying problem is that so much hangs on exactly who the president is, and who the SCOTUS justices are. Had we not, over centuries, by inertia in letting destructive norms gunk up the actual rules by which govt works, let SCOTUS and the presidency get as powerful as they are today, it would not matter much at all who exactly the justices or the president might be at any given time.
The actual written rules in the founding document give Congress all the final say on every question. It is only in the power vacuum created by the progressive shirking of successive Congresses of their duty to run the govt that the presidency and SCOTUS have grown in power outside all bounds, to the point that one or just a handful of incumbents can use their offices to frustrate democracy.
Very well said, thanks.