Re: The Magic of Trump
 

If it's by tearing down big stuff, and not worrying too much about who gets mashed by the falling debris, please don't.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Most of the big stuff is pretty resilient, and if it can be brought down by a bit of windmill tilting and bashing of heads against walls it usually should be brought down.

Of course, if Bernie's Bozos get a head of steam up like the Tea Partiers, there could be some debris.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I believe in small because when you work small, people remain accountable to one another. If you hire someone to work at your mom & pop and they live down the street, you can believe you'll be paying them enough that they don't need food stamps.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Let me guess; you have been watching Andy Griffith show? As long as people go to CostCo and Target and Walmart small places can't make it. I'm the problem, you're the problem.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

That invites a bigger discussion about community. If you don't think a huge part of what's led to predatory elements running wild in our economy has to do with loss of community, and depersonalization of most processes impacting our lives, you aren't looking very closely.

The movie The Corporation remains an excellent starting point for the bigger explanation of What's Gone Wrong. The new Chomsky movie on Netflix is also a nice encapsulation of the Reasons We're Fucked.

ETA: And yet I can't remain anything but selfish and self interested. As I look around, I see no way to fix these problems. The average American hasn't the intellectual brain power or understanding of the forces causing the problems to start a movement to do so. And honestly, he probably couldn't even if he did. There aren't any easy villains or heroes, and no ideological or political solution. The rational brain runs back to the basic infallible logic every time: Choose that which costs you least in terms of money. Draw the circle small, as depressing as that is. Because nobody in a position of power - absolutely nobody - is looking out for you.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Huge 2.

But the forces in favor of retaining the status quo at all costs are insurmountable. A Trump presidency will infuriate his followers with a lack of ensuing chaos. The political and economic systems at work will neuter him, just as they would Bernie, or anyone else promising real change. They can absorb almost any shock and will convert any serious change agent to a supplicant, consciously or not, in short order.

And God help us if we actually ran into a factual scenario where significant change could occur. That could only happen with massive social disruption, including significant violence, or following some monstrous terrorist attack (dirty bomb, etc.). And that change would be implementation of de facto martial law (under some bland term like "Emergency Terror Threat Procedures"). Sounds nuts, right? Well, consider all of the leaks of domestic spying that have come out in the past ten years. And now consider why so much of that spying is taking place. Would you seriously argue spying on our own citizens is done solely to thwart Middle Eastern terrorists? The policy wonks in the Pentagon endlessly game out economic crises and social disruptions. (They don't argue things like global warming. They accept the science and plan for how to deal with its fallout.) If we get another 2008, or a massive terrorist attack on our soil, and it causes conditions ripe for true change agents to tinker with the system in a manner which would adversely impact the corporate and political elite, the script will quickly shift from something approaching Brave New World, under which the proles are currently managed, to something a bit more Orwellian.

In short, the only real socioeconomic or political change you're likely to see in the near term is the kind you really, really don't want.

Dangerous Idiot of the Day
 

This stupidity needn't be enhanced with comment: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics...otton-prisons/

Re: Dangerous Idiot of the Day
 

Clearly, between this guy and Cruz, Harvard has dramatically lowered its standards to admit more conservatives.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Yeah, right. This is the old "slaveholders with three slaves instead of a plantation full treated them better".

There is no shortage of small operations that rely on underpaid under-the-table workers to serve their food, stock their shelves, tailor their clothes, etc. Walmarts makes an art of paying the minimum permitted by law, many a small operation simple pays less than the minimum permitted but chooses their victims carefully.

There are a lot of small operations I like a lot and frequent. I think I've been inside a Wallmart twice in my life, I don't like them.

But I'm still going to Starbucks.

Re: Dangerous Idiot of the Day
 

That or, perhaps more probable, this moron's campaign reports show significant donations from private prison companies.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Of course, community in general is at the heart of change. It's essential to solving the problems of persistent crime and education, it is what will fuel a rebuilding of family and health improvement before the need to flood the ER. In Chicago, New York, and cities all over the country, activists are using abandoned lots and blighted areas to guerilla garden (this is one way to combat food deserts without massive farms that, really, Sidd, don't do anything to actually feed people). Smaller businesses that are part of the community may initially lead to further isolation for minorities, but that isolation will acts an incubator for creating jobs, adding to the small economy, and making communities more attractive to and accessible to outsiders, which should eventually lead to more diversity in communities.

But it will require the kind of conscious sacrifice that, I agree, we aren't as a culture willing to make. It will take massive breakdown. Yes, that will hurt a lot of people, the world over. But only by tearing everything down will we have no choice but to rebuild.

And it will eventually all fall down. As we say in the tax game, it's all just a question of timing.

Re: Dangerous Idiot of the Day
 

Tom Cotton is nothing but Ted Cruz without the intelligence and, Thank God, the money and machine.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I really try to avoid this as a response these days, but, fuck you. Sometimes, your level of condescension goes beyond the edge of the envelope,

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

yeah, sometimes it does. Sorry about that. I'll try to dial back.

Because I love you like the brother I never had and so never got to beat up on.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

We cool.

As a peace offering, I haven't been following all the slam Afro Funk y'all been laying down, but I've always liked King Sunny Ade, even if he may be a little tame for you youngsters. https://youtu.be/30dwP1PI0C0?list=PL3F514B058BCC5378

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Nothing wrong with Old School. Brings a smile.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

This one just completely dismays me. Pure tea partyesque move.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Never On No Sunday

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I swear, Sanders and his people have turned into the extreme purist holier-than-thou types that mirrors the Tea Party.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Spoken like a corrupt, in-the-tank corporate flunky.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

You realize that those guerilla gardens are incapable of providing food to more than an absolute de minimis number of people, right?

Can you fill in the gaps in how you got from point A to point B, please?

TM

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I considered echoing your response to GGG, about condescension. But, really -- when someone says something like "massive farms... don't do anything to actually feed people," and suggests that we will feed an ever-growing world population through community farming in abandoned city lots, it's hard to do anything but laugh.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

As someone who had to milk the damn animals at quarter of five in the morning when I was a wee one, I am very happy that there are other people out there to do the farming for me. And I pity any of them who try to make a living off of it without assistance from Comrade John Deere, a man who did much to liberate us.

I'm all for community gardens in cities and using abandoned lots, but, ah, I'm also all for that really good smokey blue cheese I like on some rice crackers with a few dates and a glass of port. cheers!

Re: Dangerous Idiot of the Day
 

Let's not dismiss the possibility that both could be true.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

The guerilla gardens only supply small amounts of fresh produce, but it's more than they had before. Think of them as demonstration project, proof of what can be done when people take more ownership of their lives. Now think of all the vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and rooftops that are being used for nothing but hang-outs used by people with far less positive influence on the community.

Take a look at Bronzeville, in Chicago. A renaissance in black-owned businesses initially drew almost exclusively black customers, but over time, Bronzeville has extended the overall economic growth and diversity of Chicago's South Loop. Another example is Savannah's Starland District, where a group of black owned businesses started out serving the black, mostly poor West Side. The area has grown into one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in Savannah, with restaurants, art galleries, and other retail shops are mixing with auto shops and antique stores that used to be salvage and junk furniture stores that used to provide furnishings and building materials for people who couldn't afford any better into thriving restoration and vintage materials sources for people doing rehabs in the Historic District.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Well, then by all means, let them eat textured soy protein.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

A friend was in a band called Mock Duck. They served mock duck during their performances. No idea if that is soy. I'm tired and need a little something to soothe the troubles. In other words, today's Daily Dose. Rufus with Chaka Khan. Tell Me Something Good, and she does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm_cFzVAoo8

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I put on Was (not) was, you put on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert?

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Or bread, or rice, or apples, or carrots, or any of the other things that are grown on large-scale farms.

The nations that are able to feed their people and export food are those that have moved to large-scale agriculture. The ones living off of small-holder farms cannot come close to keeping up with population growth.

The ones that are living off of micro-greens grown in abandoned urban lots? Those don't exist. Though they might have to, if the "let's burn down the banks and tear down the cities" crowd prevails.

As I've said: There are plenty of reasons to change or eliminate farm subsidies so that they don't give so much incentive to corn syrup and the like. But that's a very, very different thing than your "let's all live off of family farms" bullshit.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Carrots are one of the most bizarre mass-farmed things out there. You grow carrots and they don't look or taste anything like those long, thin, bunches. You have to grow those in a bed of sifted something (probably not soil in most cases) to get them to turn out like that.

I can only imagine the urban farmers pulling a blood-red stubby thing out of their urban oasis and saying, huh, mabel, what's this hear thing?

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

sorry, it's not gluten free.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

I think you have an idea of New York that doesn't quite fit with the current reality. There are very few vacant lots. Forget Manhattan. People are being pushed out of the boroughs as a result of gentrification. Places like South Bronx*, Flatbush, and even East New York--traditionally known as places white people drove around for fear of death--are currently in transition. The few vacant lots aren't going to be vacant for long. In fact, there have been numerous articles about long-standing community gardens being removed for developments. This isn't 80s New York.

I can't speak to your examples. But "fastest growing neighborhood" usually means "push out the locals who have lived there for generations." There is usually a honeymoon period that people tend to romanticize and remember (selectively) where it seems there is a great mix of long-time (poorer) residents and new and interesting cheese shops and bullshit art stores popping up alongside places whose leases aren't up yet. Seems to me, that's what you're describing.

TM

*(South, South Bronx.)

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Urban farming is a very romantic notion, and like many such notions is largely bullshit. Yeah, you can grow some nice produce. But can you produce enough calories and enough variety on a hand-tended lot to provide a nutritious diet for the people working that lot? Highly doubtful, especially if it's just volunteers and activists doing the work.

And you are using a lot that could be used for a multi-family housing development, bringing people into a living situation where they consume vastly less energy per capita than they would elsewhere.

The real benefit of urban gardening projects is to get people used to growing -- and thus eating -- fresh produce, to move people away from prepackaged foods. That's a great goal, but it's not a method of replacing large-scale agriculture. And there are other ways to accomplish that, and to deal with the "food desert" issue. That same multi-family housing development can have a market on the ground floor that sells produce rather than the shit that some places sell, and that's a change I've been seeing all over.

I'm also skeptical of the health benefits of eating lettuce that has been breathing in the NYC air, but maybe that's just me.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

It's one of those things that is a nice thing, but just isn't going to make much of a dent in any real world problem.

However, if we could get Atticus to change the zoning so people can keep goats in the suburbs, and turn all those nice suburban lawns into goat pens, the world would be a better place and there would be goat cheese for all.

Re: joke
 

Random observation: the Brocialists seem to be resisting the idea that they've become an irrelevant joke, thus making themselves even funnier.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Sigh. I miss me sometimes.

ETA: Especially my avatar. I really miss my avatar.
https://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/sargent/610/061-052.jpg

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Perhaps. But she courts this response. It seems to be a Florida thing to be an unjustifiably arrogant, grating asshole. Alan Grayson, Rick Scott, Wassermen Schultz... You think the sun would make these miserable, coarse people happy.

Bernie gets another pass on this one. (Also because infighting within either party is welcomed. The GOP's already burned down. The last thing we should have in the absence of competition is a unified single party running this country. That's a true "move to Canada" situation.)

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Any more romantic than, "We can fix all that ails us with education!"? At least with farming, you get something to eat. It's hard to get calories from non-dischargeable student debt. Even $1.2 trillion of it.

If you're a pundit or expert and you're going to say something like, "More education + ??????????? = Fixed economy! Yay!" publicly, pause, think, and perhaps refrain from doing that talk show. You're doing a lot more damage than good.

Re: The Magic of Trump
 

Would you be willing to eat Flint radishes?