State of the Union

[thehallway]

In all the confusion, all the smoke and mirrors, all the horrific distractions designed to derail any understanding of the Trump/Russia saga, this is perhaps the clearest, most cogent timeline and explanation for what will go down surely in our history as one of the darkest periods America and Americans have lived through. Must read.

Trump/Russia

Comments

[stellar_dust]

Makes a lot of sense :/

[lazaefair]

Well, we don’t have legalized chattel slavery. That’s a pretty dark bar to surpass.

[thehallway]

You're right in that the only legalized slavery at this point is the use of prison slave labor which is sanctioned by the 13th Amendment and required by for profit prisons. Chattel slavery may be the only atrocity we miss meeting at this point in time, but the dismantling of our institutions, the separation of families and caging of children, the loss of children we have no way of finding (part of the definition of genocide), the selling off and destruction of public lands, the rolling back of environmental protections, the crisis of healthcare and the profit of ever escalating drugs like insulin and epipens, all in the name of insane profit for a few at the expense of everyone else, the ever escalating creep of religion as a political tool is creating a fairly dark, dystopian society. A lot of our current political dysfunction really does hold the power of life and death over vulnerable and marginalized people, and an ever increasing number of us are becoming vulnerable and marginalized and wealth and power continue to consolidate at the top one percent of society. As a society we no longer engage in political discussion but revert to tribes and we are split along racial, religious, generational, political and economic fault lines much like we were on the brink of the Civil War, during the Civil Rights era and Vietnam. Teapot Dome and Watergate look like amateur hour now in light of the massive wave of corruption and rot currently tearing us apart. And it is all tied together in pursuit of the holy grail of insane profit. Forgive the length of this, but it has been a long, ugly day.

[lazaefair]

I do often wonder what Roman citizens thought and felt back when the empire was in the middle of collapsing, and if their emotions at all resembled what we’re feeling now.