Last edited Sun Sep 21, 2025, 03:08 PM - Edit history (2)

We have all those stupid MAGA MFers -- couldn't make change at a MacD without a machine telling them what to do. And our fucking media seems to be celebrating them as the face of the "new normal America."

Then everywhere we look beyond MAGA (mostly overseas, tragically) we have important new technologies. Countries are pursuing virtually unlimited energy through fusion (see France), fantastic advances in batteries and EVs (see China and Korea), high-speed ultra-efficient train transportation (see China and part of Europe), and on and on. We have already lost our power position in manufacturing. Trump is driving away the best scientists and killing the best universities, so we are a generation away from being the have-nots in all major technology areas. And while all this is happening, the only things Americans seem to care about are guns, abortions, and football.

How can these two universes coexist? I just had another birthday. Not too many more trips around the sun left for me. But how can we do this to our children and grandchildren?

We've not been making progress for decades. Seems like every time we start to go forward a Republican takes office and shuts it all down.

And that is still a driving factor, obviously. But it seems to me there has been a huge change with this wave of robber barons. Many of them have no real connection to the US. The most powerful forces are now international. They have no interest in the advancement of Americans: no interest in our standard of living, cost of health care, cost of housing, level of education, or even average life expectancy (which has been dropping).

To them, the USA is just another market to exploit, and they have found it very easy to take over our political system to provide essentially no resistance to their exploitation.

A generation or two ago, one heard lots of rhetoric about America being a beacon for the world, the city on the hill and so on. Much of that has always been bullshit and gaslighting. But now, it seems that politicians aren't even trying to spout off about "American exceptionalism" any more. We now have one of the most corrupt societies, governments, and economic systems in the world, Yet, the average person, while accumulating impossible debt and many facing poverty in their senior years, don't seem to even care about these things.

Gotta run. Football games start in 90 minutes. That's just enough time for me to go buy my weekly lottery tickets, place my bets on the football games, and grab a cold 12-pack.

We've lost our leadership place in the world because we've turned our attentions to bulllying, self-congratulation, and posturing.

In essence, in the world now...........................we are a joke.

Left on its own, capitalism evolves into monopolies, and government by the people who have the most capital. There is no escape from that if you insist on the purest form of capitalism, no regulation, no restrictions, and government only by the unseen hand of the markets.

Just about every major country has some elements of capitalism -- even China. But there is nowhere that the billionaires are allowed to run free the way they do in the USA.

It was the same way in the late 19th century with the railroads, the robber barons, and the emerging oil companies. It took the larger-than-life force of Teddy Roosevelt to bring these oligarchs back to earth, and then 4 terms of Franklin Roosevelt to really solidify the notion of a middle class, social programs, education for the masses labor representation and a living wage. For the 80 years since FDR's time the Republican Party has been doing everything in their power to bring back the era of robber barons.

And that is where we are today. Trump is not admired in this crowd. But he proven amoral and ruthless enough to give the new barons what they want. And they give Trump what he wants -- the ability to spend every day bullying, grifting and threatening. That is where his real passion is. But make not mistake. Trump is not the architect of this. And the system will not correct on its own after he dies. We need strong-willed leadership, such as we had with Teddy and FDR.

of the future - chairs, couches, tables etc. seemed very possible.
Wonder what ever happened to those ideas

Maybe they thought as usage increased, costs would drop

It does look like a sorcerer had to have made it. Weird s and wonderful stuff!