Tony Judt's Postwar, Brassed Off, comparisons between the collapse of the British auto industry in the '70s and the collapse of the US auto industry in 2008, and much of the industrial music of the late '70s/early '80s gave me the impression that there are vast swaths of the UK that essentially haven't had meaningful employment in their neighborhoods since the '70s. Thatcher, for her part, kicked the shit out of working class UK families that are now into their 2nd generations of welfare. The article is insightful - families that are dependent on aid are not thankful for that aid. They long for a return to utility and "fuck everybody, at least we're all suffering now" becomes a viable strategy. Spent way too long at Los Angeles International Airport today/yesterday. There was a fat kid - couldn't have been 20 - wearing a "Trump: Make America Great Again" shirt in the security line. He just kept making eye contact with everybody he saw, spoiling for a fight. This kid has no understanding about politics. But he knows that his guy makes you upset, and since he doesn't like you, that's good enough. It really doesn't matter that his livelihood is dependent on you - what matters is that he gets to spite you. Thank god the minorities hate Trump.
Trump as punk rock? Ew. Not disagreeing, just ew.This kid has no understanding about politics. But he knows that his guy makes you upset, and since he doesn't like you, that's good enough. It really doesn't matter that his livelihood is dependent on you - what matters is that he gets to spite you.
That's what you get when transgression is a means to an end.
I think this is the real issue that we need to address right now that everyone ignores yet likes to talk about all of these other ones. Our major problem right now isn't gun control, muslims, whatever you choose to think. The major issue is mental health. We have repeatedly neglected people in society with mental health issues and repeatedly do the opposite to them to make them worse off. For instance, in some places the way to deal with mentally ill who end up homeless or addicted to drugs is that they just arrest them rather than treat them. As someone with a psychotic illness, you can just read my comments and notice how half of them are complete alarmist ridiculousness that should be eradicated from existence, then the other half are almost worthy of being left there to be ignored. The first half you'll notice is almost identical to the types of ridiculous crazy things people say and do, and it's usually because I'm having a bad hour/day/week. Sometimes I just need to be socked in the face. We all acknowledge the problems with healthcare so we pass bills like the Affordable Care Act to fix these things, then after congress gets their mits on it it becomes a fucking mess. Then Congress yells at Obama for something that Congress itself did, and we all go completely bonkers. There are some good things to the ACA, but some serious problems as well. For instance, when it started to get enacted, there is some beauraucratic BS in there about requirements for certain prescription drugs. For years I was unable to be treated with a drug that basically acted nearly like a miracle cure, and three different type of specialist doctors independently of each other prescribed it to me in different contexts. Insurance requires you try X, Y, and Z, first. Well, those are all dangerous to my health and has be documented and proven through emergency room visits, so no thanks, I'll go without the miracle cure drug because I can't afford $500/pill. Yet our insanity as a country has led us to the path of acting against our own self-interest. I at least can acknowledge that I act irrationally and say stupid things from time to time. But most people have this anti-medicine approach and sometimes rightfully so, because the system is broken. It seems increasingly that nearly all of our systems are broken. People like this, the people who are angry and want to inflict pain on other people are a by-product of a shitty system. It's not necessarily their faults for the way they act (though they should be held accountable if they act maliciously), but more and more people are just unable to fathom the sheer failure of these systems in large quantities on the people and just fall into this dark depression that leads them into this path of acting out against other people. And for Trump supporters, they believe with the depression and despair that they have been facing recently in their lives, they think that anything is better than what we are now, so fuck it, let's tear down this mess. I realize this post is a disorganized mess without any coherent flow, but it's because it wrote it in small bits and had ideas flowing from different.... whatever attribute it to disorganized thinking I can't explain this mess of a post. I don't even remember what I was talking about.This kid has no understanding about politics. But he knows that his guy makes you upset, and since he doesn't like you, that's good enough. It really doesn't matter that his livelihood is dependent on you - what matters is that he gets to spite you.