[John Riley]

Tommy Tuberville knows what is destroying the military. It isn’t holding up promotions and pay raises for men and women who deserve them. It’s poetry.


https://newrepublic.com/maz/post/175...-reading-poems

[James Brancheau]

I didn't read the article, John. I will later, as much as I don't want to. Biden is tied with Trump according to polling. Or Trump is one point ahead, according to some polls. I have no words for this. Except. I left the states in part because I couldn't deal with Bush jr and the bullshit back then. There were other issues, but I had trouble not getting into (often very aggressive) arguments. I think a good portion of Americans are willfully stupid. And another portion is actually stupid. Quietly, Biden has done quite a bit. Quietly, perhaps, is the problem. I'm not a flag waving fan, but, as Maher said, I'd rather Biden's brain be floating in a jar as president than Trump being elected again.

[John Riley]

This guy is holding up military promotions and pay raises because of some made-up abortion bs.

I wish I had left this place decades ago. Now my son is a Navy SEAL, which is almost more than I can think about. He's willing to do what he does for a country that may elect Trump again. If we'd left maybe he would have made a different decision.

The current move toward irrational, self-destructive politics isn't contained in the U.S. I think, this isn't original with me, that it is because of the widening gap between the few elite soon-to-be trillionaires and the vast majority of people who live in financial anxiety. As the gap grows and the anxiety increases it gets crazier and crazier. Marx may have said religion is the opiate of the people, but it is now the methamphetamine. The nature of most of the other madness is no more divorced from reality than the Book of Mormon or Hindu nationalism or any other religious fanaticism. This diverts attention. It's obvious. It is no coincidence that the figures most responsible for the madness that will eventually consume us all if it isn't stopped are billionaires such as Murdoch and now Elon Musk, who has now, true to form, gone anti-Semitic. When people's lives were less economically stressed there was more room for sanity. People are going nuts. And yes, their poor economic decisions add to the stress, but when you live in a society that values the car you drive to the extent you're willing to borrow all the equity in your home to buy an $80,000.00 pickup truck, how much can you blame people who are constantly bombarded with marketing? IMO, the 20th-century American writer who had the keenest eye on the suicide created by marketing and status was Philip K. Dick.

Sorry about the tirade. I'm no scholar but I have read and studied enough history and read enough literature to know when the world is marching toward disaster. I guess I sound nuts but if so explain to me why this isn't like the twenty years leading up to WWI? And no, not specifics but in the increasing derangement, or Europe before 1789. Check out the link below regarding the "Thucydides Trap" in the context of U.S.-China relations.

https://www.belfercenter.org/thucydi...hucydides-trap

[James Brancheau]

You don't need to be a scholar, John. I've written this before here, so I'll try to make it briefer. My father was a firefighter making firefighter money, middle class money, in the late 70s. My mother did not work at that time. We had a house, two cars (bought new, both of them), my brother and I went to a private (fairly crazy) catholic school, and we took a couple week family vacation every year. On one firefighter's salary.

[James Brancheau]

*I'll just leave it at what I wrote above.

[Michael Tyldesley]

John, poetry is alive and well in the Royal Navy based on my experience. I previously alluded to Burns' Night readings on a submarine for example. That wasn't my idea, it's just part of their tradition. They don't seem to care that they don't understand the poems either.

History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme as they say.. I'm not convinced that these fringe politicians who are deliberatly trying to wind you up actually hold much power at the top level. It's just a sideshow at the circus. But when you get angry and pit yourself against the other side then that's what they want because it serves their agenda. I'd just ignore.

Alabama must be a safe seat but I can't see this guy being taken seriously far beyond that state and others at the extremes of Christian fundamentalism.

[Jim Moonan]

.
World events do seem to be rhyming Yeats' Second Coming followed closely by Eliot's The Waste Land. Pity that I can't think of the bookend poem of the world coming out on the other side better off. Only Ginsberg's Howl...

Politics aside: we will write poetry as long as there is consciousness.

.

[John Riley]

Michael, Tuberville isn't a fringe politician. That's the problem.

I mentioned Murdoch and Musk and other billionaires, the Koch family, as being responsible for the madness. It's obvious the politicians are their bitches.

I hear the "don't worry yourself about politics and the state of the world" all the time. It's faux wisdom. Socrates was a relatively wise man and look what politics did to him.

[James Brancheau]

That's correct, John. That is the problem.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Michael Tyldesley

when you get angry and pit yourself against the other side then that's what they want because it serves their agenda. I'd just ignore.

I think that's wise when it comes to a lot of online discussion. But not where it involves our elected representatives.

Originally Posted by Michael Tyldesley

I'm not convinced that these fringe politicians who are deliberatly trying to wind you up actually hold much power at the top level.

Tuberville is a U.S. senator exercising his power to disrupt the military's smooth functioning. The military, as evidenced by Navy Secretary Del Toro's comments, sees this as a serious problem.

Because, as you point out, Alabama is safe Republican territory, this is a problem the Republicans have to solve, by pressuring Tuberville to stop, or by primarying him out of office. The rest of us can encourage the Republicans to take their responsibility seriously by making sure voters (especially swing-state and Alabama voters) recognize this anti-military Republican stance.