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I'm skeptical they'll get the votes. They can only lose 4.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:39
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Sir Lemming posted:I suppose the unbreakable rule of Everything Is Projection demands that Republicans launch a blatantly politicized impeachment of every Democratic president now. I am not sure this was their intention but if they make impeach so banal then it doesn't hurt so much when the next guy gets impeached. Like honestly, part of this feels like a way to weaken the power of impeachment but just impeaching for anything anytime a Democrat becomes President. Hopefully, it has an rallying effect for Biden along with the other things.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:49
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It doesn't matter either way, impeachment is a toothless threat and has proven to be an ineffective check on the executive branch. America has never successfully kicked a sitting president out of office and is never going to.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:50
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haveblue posted:*ten years from now, on msnbc* don't worry about it, every president gets impeached a few times in their first term Why not? It’s not like it’s proven to be a very meaningful procedure.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:53
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bird food bathtub posted:I hear nostalgic talk about being "part of the community" and it just does not apply to my life. What is my "community"? Everybody who lives near me is either new since I moved in or already gone, and I'll have to leave them all behind the next time I want a raise because job hopping is the only way that happens. I've known my cats longer than anybody within 50 miles of me, and that will likely be true until I retire. The church you go to every Sunday, the co-workers you go to the bar with after work a couple times a week, the neighbors you enjoy the company of and spend time with, and the afterschool activities group your kids go to. At least, that's what your community would have been if this were a 1950s sitcom. I can't comment on the actual accuracy of that depiction, but even if it's heavily idealized, I doubt it's complete bullshit. Even if you move every five years, at every location you'll have a new church, new co-workers, new neighbors, and new kid activities, and you don't have to know them for ages and ages to hang out with them. Of course, we don't really have any of those things anymore in the 21st century, but I think it's a bit of a copout to vaguely wave our hands at capitalism and say it owns the blame for that. We don't go to church because we're all godless communists, we don't have any sense of community with our neighbors anymore, and lots of people don't hang out with their coworkers outside of work anymore. You're not joining a local activity group like a bowling club or something just to get out of the house every now and then. Night shifts, long shifts, and kids eating up lots of time aren't new things to the 21st century, though. What is? Well, no discussion of this is complete without the mention of the numerous screen-based technologies that have vastly reduced our need to get out and seek out people to spend time with in person, especially since milestones in these technologies tend to line up pretty well with milestones in the loneliness epidemic and the breakdown of community. Color TV became widespread in the 1970s, cellphones and the internet started to become widespread in the early 2000s, and social media and smartphones really took off in the mid-2010s. Even if we don't realize it, I think the existence of this convenient at-home entertainment and the ease of long-distance communication have substantially reduced our drive to go actively seek out reasons to go out and spend time with people in person, especially when it comes to meeting people we don't really know already.
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Aug 8, 2023 14:59
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Literally everything you're describing is exactly the fault of capitalism and how policy has been pushed to get rid of everything in the way of the magnates making more money. You describe all these things as if they're in a vacuum and there's no such thing as context, exactly the glaring problem with the essay. There are reasons people do these things and they are not just because of SOME GIZMO.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:03
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Covid killed most of my social spaces more than anything else, but it's not exactly hard to go out and find something to do.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:06
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Yeah, if you're actively looking for social spaces, they aren't hard to find, i think what's happened is just, people are far less casually showing up to social spaces because home is just more entertaining in general. So it's a more select crowd that shows up at specifically social spaces, as opposed to the general public with more cross-cutting identities involved, it's like this with churches, bars, etc.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:09
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Fwiw, Clinton does address material conditions towards the end of the quote Leon posted from the article, although not super detailed. Although I will say, like others, I'm not sure those are the root cause (although certainly not helping! Yes we should address material conditions and build public transit anyway before anyone gets on me) - the Dutch are famously some of the loneliest people in the world and they have an actual social safety net and third places out the wazoo. On the flip side, you see very strong social bonds among immigrants and their children, probably because there's a necessity there. We're not any less subject to capitalism's whims than any other American, probably more so on average, but we have to go to temple/church/mosque/weird community gatherings and meet with the distant relatives to get community, which ends up being more community than the average not recent immigrant American gets. Of course, if you have to put effort into a thing, like sign up for Meetup, then fewer people will do the thing and I'm not sure how you change human nature
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Aug 8, 2023 15:21
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Literally everything you're describing is exactly the fault of capitalism and how policy has been pushed to get rid of everything in the way of the magnates making more money. You describe all these things as if they're in a vacuum and there's no such thing as context, exactly the glaring problem with the essay. There are reasons people do these things and they are not just because of SOME GIZMO. Can you show your work on this one? If you're saying that capitalism made us stop wanting to go to church or say hi to our neighbors, I don't see how that fits together at all. And if you're saying that capitalism gave us TVs and smartphones, I feel that doesn't exactly lead to "actually the real problem is capitalism". Panzeh posted:Yeah, if you're actively looking for social spaces, they aren't hard to find, i think what's happened is just, people are far less casually showing up to social spaces because home is just more entertaining in general. So it's a more select crowd that shows up at specifically social spaces, as opposed to the general public with more cross-cutting identities involved, it's like this with churches, bars, etc. I agree with this, but there's also a compounding effect to it. As fewer people show up to these community groups and social spaces, the groups and spaces themselves start to atrophy and wither away. Not only does the lack of people reduce the opportunities for socialization, but it's not uncommon for group members to contribute some resources (such as time, money, or political support) to the upkeep of the group, so the group/space loses resources and support as it shrinks.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:27
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I literally just said; there's little point getting to know your neighbours because no one has any security, you'll have to move in a few years when your landlord sells or you need to get a new job so you can live, or they will. Churches are all taken over by prosperity gospel and Fox News and have declared war on everyone under 50 who's not enough of a pod person for their liking, not to mention all the abuse. They are not safe or desirable places at the best of times with a few exceptions that are a very hard sell for those used to 'church' meaning 'wants to torture my friends to death for being born the wrong way'. The people wondering why this is a problem are people who have time, money, and energy. That is immense privilege and not representative of the majority going forward. Liquid Communism posted:Yep. I'm 40ish and have had more than a dozen addresses since high school, across multiple states, chasing work. Even back in the town I grew up in now, I can't so much as schedule a four hour a month D&D game for the old crowd because it's an even split of 'on call for my tech job' or 'still dealing with small children and can't afford a babysitter' and I'm stuck slowly killing myself via 12 hour overnight shifts.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:32
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The House plans to file articles of impeachment and officially open an impeachment inquiry against Biden this fall - and as early as next month.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:35
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Main Paineframe posted:Can you show your work on this one? If you're saying that capitalism made us stop wanting to go to church or say hi to our neighbors, I don't see how that fits together at all. And if you're saying that capitalism gave us TVs and smartphones, I feel that doesn't exactly lead to "actually the real problem is capitalism". You're conflating having a desire to do something with having the agency to do that thing. Many spiritual Americans would much rather be at a Sunday morning church service than serving breakfast baconators at 9AM on a Sunday, but they gots to make ends so their need for a roof over their/their childrens' heads outweighs their desire to attend a social sermon. Your rebuttal reeks of the kind of privilege that someone with the material means to choose church over labor possesses in spades.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:42
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Lib and let die posted:You're conflating having a desire to do something with having the agency to do that thing. incidentally, the recent Supreme Court ruling on GROFF v. DEJOY, POSTMASTER GENERAL should make it easier to challenge this for employees who have the money, time, and other resources to devote to legal action quote:Petitioner Gerald Groff is an Evangelical Christian who believes for religious reasons that Sunday should be devoted to worship and rest. In 2012, Groff took a mail delivery job with the United States Postal Service. Groff's position generally did not involve Sunday work, but that changed after USPS agreed to begin facilitating Sunday deliveries for Amazon. To avoid the requirement to work Sundays on a rotating basis, Groff transferred to a rural USPS station that did not make Sunday deliveries. After Amazon deliveries began at that station as well, Groff remained unwilling to work Sundays, and USPS redistributed Groff's Sunday deliveries to other USPS staff. Groff received "progressive discipline" for failing to work on Sundays, and he eventually resigned.
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Aug 8, 2023 15:53
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Just got back from voting in the Ohio August special and it was definitely the most packed I can remember. Fortunately the lines were moving quickly, I don’t think I saw anyone get in line in leave in my time there. I drive past the Franklin County early voting location for work and that place has been jam packed, too.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:00
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As a reminder, what Ohio is voting on today is whether or not to raise the threshold for passage of referendums from 50% to 60%, plus other minor changes that make them harder to launch in the first place. The only reason this is happening, and happening now, is that in November a referendum on enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution is expected to attract just under 60% support. If today's measure fails, it will pass in a landslide. If today's measure passes, it will probably fail. If you are in Ohio, vote no on Issue 1 Also, Ohio is not supposed to have off-schedule elections for this sort of thing any more, but Republicans forced it through anyway, because that's how afraid of the November referendum they are
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Aug 8, 2023 16:06
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Froghammer posted:It doesn't matter either way, impeachment is a toothless threat and has proven to be an ineffective check on the executive branch. America has never successfully kicked a sitting president out of office and is never going to. Nixon? The only reason he resigned is because the votes in the Senate to kick him where there.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:13
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haveblue posted:plus other minor changes that make them harder to launch in the first place. I think this undersells the other changes. Having to get signatures from all 88 counties (instead of 44 IIRC) is a big change, as is not getting a chance to submit additional signatures if something goes wrong with the initial batch. Any one of these changes really suck, and all three together would make it incredibly difficult to even get something on the ballot going forward much less pass it.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:13
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Lib and let die posted:You're conflating having a desire to do something with having the agency to do that thing. I dunno about that. Alot of churches have more times than just Sunday morning and if someone really wanted to go to church, they would. Of course, not having a designated time where everyone goes to church makes it that people can't be as rigid about attending Sunday services. I think churches are just not a communal space that people want to go to anymore unless they have a specific set of views that fit with their church socially, whereas the social convetion used to be that you had to go to church. I don't think they would see a resurgence if material conditions were solved, and everyone could support themselves easily.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:14
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Anno posted:I think this undersells the other changes. Having to get signatures from all 88 counties (instead of 44 IIRC) is a big change, as is not getting a chance to submit additional signatures if something goes wrong with the initial batch. Any one of these changes really suck, and all three together would make it incredibly difficult to even get something on the ballot going forward much less pass it. Oh yeah, it's all ratfucking, but the 60% thing is the most blatantly undemocratic, plus it's the only one that would actually kill the abortion referendum since it's all been approved and finalized already. They're also going to court over that but are likely to lose
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Aug 8, 2023 16:17
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Honestly 60% is way less of a big deal than requiring signatures from all 88 counties to get on the ballot
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Aug 8, 2023 16:18
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gurragadon posted:I dunno about that. Alot of churches have more times than just Sunday morning and if someone really wanted to go to church, they would. Of course, not having a designated time where everyone goes to church makes it that people can't be as rigid about attending Sunday services. I think churches are just not a communal space that people want to go to anymore unless they have a specific set of views that fit with their church socially. I don't think they would see a resurgence if material conditions were solved, and everyone could support themselves easily. Ultimately, you can insert yourDayOfWorship here for Sunday instead, because sure, in just the Catholic tradition alone there are daily services, but the communal tradition (small-c, not the transubstantiation kind, the kind that simply brings a community together) is that you go to church on Sunday. I don't mean this as a sleight, but do you actually have any family members that regularly attend religious services? Different services can be given by different clergy members at different times on different days, preachers often save their "A-Game" for the Sunday sermon, the basement coffee-and-croissants happens on a Sunday, you're encouraged to bring the kids on Sundays for their own special services - Sunday is a big deal in the Christian faith, so I think that's something worth considering. "Just go to a different service" isn't simple as.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:19
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Capitalism also existed before 1999 in America and places like the Netherlands have stronger social safety nets and worse issues with social disconnection. Also, the average person in the U.S. has been working fewer hours basically every year since the late 1960's, but lower average working hours have coincided with the problem getting worse. That's why people who study it, even people who think it is primarily related to material conditions, say they can't fully explain why it started happening in the U.S. and why other countries are worse/better. They just know: - It started in the 70's. - It got worse rapidly after 2003. - The pandemic exploded it even further and it isn't clear if it is temporary or not. - Social media plays a part. - It impacts more men than women. - It impacts people of all socio-economic levels in the U.S. 
Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 16:23
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Lib and let die posted:Ultimately, you can insert yourDayOfWorship here for Sunday instead, because sure, in just the Catholic tradition alone there are daily services, but the communal tradition (small-c, not the transubstantiation kind, the kind that simply brings a community together) is that you go to church on Sunday. Yeah, I'm familiar with people who regularly attend church services, and for those people the church isn't just about a communal Sunday experience. Alot of there communal activities happen on weekdays with bible studies or various forms of charity. Or just various meetups they have at different days during the week.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:23
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There are so many alternative explanations to lower religious service attendance than “people have to work on Sunday mornings” that it seems like a weird place to start a search for answers. Like geez call me crazy but maybe the number of Americans with a religious identity dropping from 90% to 60% had something to do with it.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:27
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I literally just said; there's little point getting to know your neighbours because no one has any security, you'll have to move in a few years when your landlord sells or you need to get a new job so you can live, or they will. Out of curiosity, how did you handle friendships in college? It's strange to me to think there's little to no point getting to know someone if you think it won't be forever.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:27
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Blue Footed Booby posted:I don't know how to explain to you that community and connections to other people isn't about entertainment. The benefits of socialization aren't gained by entertainment, but traditionaly entertainment has been the primary motivator for most people to socialize. That's exactly the problem being illustrated. Historically socialization has "just happened" as a result of the many other human needs and desires, entertainment included, but modern society has steadfastly cut away pretty much all of them - entertainment and work were the big remaining holdouts. Edit: In that way it's actually a lot like the obesity epidemic if you think of it. Similar fundamentals. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Aug 8, 2023 |
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Aug 8, 2023 16:27
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RBA Starblade posted:Covid killed most of my social spaces more than anything else, but it's not exactly hard to go out and find something to do. Real estate as well. I had a good thing going with my local music library -- donated instruments, played a live show, did a lecture on synthesis and was in a residency program to get an audio engineering certificate. Last month they had to shut down because they lost their space. They applied everywhere for grants with no luck. They called a local nonprofit who assists other nonprofits for assistance with such matters... only to be told that they were shutting down because they were losing their space too. Sucks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCMZFsyhuUk
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Aug 8, 2023 16:29
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Mellow Seas posted:Like geez call me crazy but maybe the number of Americans with a religious identity dropping from 90% to 60% had something to do with it. Why do you think that is? Don't mean it as a gotcha, just want to know what your explanation for that might be. There's certainly a reason for it, and capitalism/material conditions is one possible explanation. For example, how capitalism has changed religion in America is one angle: the prosperity gospel and the now-intense (perceived, if not real) association between strong religiosity and right-wing politics makes organized religion unpalatable to a lot of folks. This is getting a bit niche wrt the wider discussion about the decline in "community," but just wanted to add this regarding religion.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:39
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i can only follow so much news so what is this "every biden has stacks of cash in their bank account" thing i keep hearing. my chud boss keeps saying this like it means something and if you ask for specifics he sputters and starts to shout about "liberal tricks"
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Aug 8, 2023 16:40
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I mean, I think the reason religiosity and church attendance is down is because it's become more of a place for people with very active religious identities than for people in general, which is kind of the point i've been trying to making- churches are now very intentional communities, where people go there because they share a viewpoint, rather than just a community fixture.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:42
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InsertPotPun posted:i can only follow so much news so what is this "every biden has stacks of cash in their bank account" thing i keep hearing. my chud boss keeps saying this like it means something and if you ask for specifics he sputters and starts to shout about "liberal tricks" Hunter Biden and his business associate were a front to funnel corruption money to Biden when he was Vice President in 2012 through 2018. Biden decided that when he was Vice President and during a time he was preparing to run for President, he needed to make a quick $60,000 by accepting bribes from the Chinese government and Russian-aligned Ukrainian oligarchs that were funneled through his son and brother's business as 10% of the profits from a deal with the Chinese government and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The reason he needed this $60,000 right away is... ??? Getting it via bribes from China and Russia was the easiest way he could make money because... ??? He thought that doing this right before running for President was the perfect time because... ??? He paid China and Russia back for his bribes by doing... ???
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Aug 8, 2023 16:48
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I literally just said; there's little point getting to know your neighbours because no one has any security, you'll have to move in a few years when your landlord sells or you need to get a new job so you can live, or they will. Churches are all taken over by prosperity gospel and Fox News and have declared war on everyone under 50 who's not enough of a pod person for their liking, not to mention all the abuse. They are not safe or desirable places at the best of times with a few exceptions that are a very hard sell for those used to 'church' meaning 'wants to torture my friends to death for being born the wrong way'. "I'll probably be moving in a few years" is not a sensible reason to never talk to your neighbors, unless you're using it as a euphemism for "I have severe depression and am too deep in a nihilistic mental hole to talk to strangers". And "churches are all taken over by prosperity gospel and Fox News" is a ridiculous generalization of a huge and diverse group. There's more than a quarter million churches in the US, and while I'm not aware of any statistical studies regarding their general political or religious stances, there's definitely a number of churches that don't fit your claim here. And as for the churches that do fit your perspective, I think you're once again mixing up cause and effect. Churches are made up of the people who attend them, and educated white liberals/leftists are far more likely to be nonreligious. As such, I'd expect the churches in decently-prosperous white communities to skew right: not because the right-wing churches are driving people away, but because the left-wingers stopped going to church and left the right-wingers to run the place. Lib and let die posted:You're conflating having a desire to do something with having the agency to do that thing. That's a nice theory, but is there data for it? It's not as if Sunday shifts at restaurants are some new 21st-century social trend. Pew Research has extensive data on religious attendance broken down into various groups, which is pretty helpful for this conversation (and fascinating reading in general, honestly). We can see there that church attendance doesn't particularly skew by income overall. Breaking down into the detailed crosstabs, we see that frequent religious attendance is common among two major groups: well-off educated conservatives, and poor non-conservative African-Americans and Hispanics. Liberals get less likely to attend church as they get richer and more educated, while conservatives get more likely to attend church as they get richer and more educated. IMO, that tends to suggest that the thing reducing church attendance is something besides lovely jobs and bad shift schedules.
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Aug 8, 2023 16:51
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Judgy Fucker posted:Why do you think that is? Don't mean it as a gotcha, just want to know what your explanation for that might be. Americans have gotten roundly effed by capitalism’s “business cycle” whims every 10 years for the entire history the country and it never made religiosity drop much. Good stuff on TV, on the other hand…
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Aug 8, 2023 17:02
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Froghammer posted:It doesn't matter either way, impeachment is a toothless threat and has proven to be an ineffective check on the executive branch. America has never successfully kicked a sitting president out of office and is never going to. There's a good argument that Nixon resigned because he thought he'd be impeached.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:16
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DeadlyMuffin posted:There's a good argument that Nixon resigned because he thought he'd be impeached.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:17
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DeadlyMuffin posted:There's a good argument that Nixon resigned because he thought he'd be impeached. That is true, but his resignation and subsequent pardon means he wasn't held accountable for his crimes. So "impeachment"...kinda worked, I guess? eta: though I guess it also kinda depends on what the Senate would've done with him had he been convicted.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:18
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Mellow Seas posted:Mass media and the corresponding increased acceptance of non-majoritarian views in the 20th century. The abuse coverups in the Catholic Church coming to light are also a significant factor.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:18
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Bellmaker posted:The abuse coverups in the Catholic Church coming to light are also a significant factor. I know mainline (non evangelical) Protestants who were disgusted by otherwise reasonably chill denominations opposing same sex marriage at the leadership level. I recall hearing "we need another reformation, somebody write some theses."
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Aug 8, 2023 17:23
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DeadlyMuffin posted:There's a good argument that Nixon resigned because he thought he'd be impeached. He knew he’d be convicted. Just having an impeachment that fails to convict is a waste of time that weakens your position. Although 50 years ago they probably wouldn’t have had an impeachment if they didn’t think they’d get the conviction.
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Aug 8, 2023 17:28
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