RebKell's Junkie Boards

[jammerbirdi]

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Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[Howee]

Damn. I finally made it through (most of) her diatribe. [....she DOES need new wallpaper ]

She's bright and articulate. She's educated and experienced. But not nearly enough, imo. She goes on at great length to explain her *change* from Dem to Rep. God bless her. This IS America, after all.

I'd consider her logic to be hampered by several obvious factors:

*She's an East Coast girl living in California, i.e., alternate universe, hence, she experiences things through a different lens than most can. Okay.

*One might predict that she's fairly affluent, and probably had a relatively sheltered upbringing. I find her logic quite deficient in targeting what, to me, is THE most mitigating factor in our country's "problems": economic inequality/Corporate Greed, but....Okay.

*Her perception of racial inequality and homelessness seem molded in an urban setting. That can only provide a partial and somewhat biased view. For example, if she spent significant time in rural Mississippi, she'd have a more complete view.

*Her take on Identity Politics is understandable. Okay.

*Her take on The Politics of Fear is WAAAY off: what she describes as fear-mongering by the "liberal media" is somewhat valid, but she seems to be of the impression it is the domain of Dems exclusively, when it historically has been a much larger part of the Republican plan.

I have a few friends much like her, who can articulate reasonable logic in explaining their Republican views. But MOST I know around here where I live will only be able to tell you that "Fox News said so"....I really do believe it's a geography thing.

God bless her, and....keep her in California!

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Oregon: Go Ducks!
"Inévitablement, les canards voleront"

[Luuuc]

I get someone changing from (D) to (R), but I don't get someone casting a vote for Trump in 2020. They seem like two very different actions to me.
She didn't get to the point nearly fast enough for me. After 7 minutes of waffling I gave up.

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Thanks for calling. I wait all night for calls like these.

[jammerbirdi]

A number of 'moments' in her 'journey' are right out of my head and have been asserted here on Rebkell's by me many times over the years.

I will say that her arrival at the place of calling herself a conservative or a Republican tells me that perhaps she has further to go on her own personal journey of discovering what truly ails this country politically.

But it is her clear-eyed, honest, sincere, and quite eloquent expression of her perspective on what are the problems with Democratic Party and leftist positions, a perspective I certainly share as do so many others who have always identified themselves as Democrats, that is what I believe makes this video itself such a moment.

There are a lot of these #walkaway videos. I don't believe there has been any that are anywhere nearly as viewed or, at this point, 'noted' as this one by Georgia. There even appears to have been a successful effort to 'throttle' the spread of it.

She speaks the truth. That, of course, is my opinion. Unlike her, as I've said here so many times, I've spent my entire politically aware life pretty much focusing on what my side was doing wrong. I don't believe you can attack the other side if you're a disaster yourself. And of course, most of the things I've been warning about since I was a teenager have come to pass.

As far as the urban perspective thing. Yeah, I don't know how else to really put this. When you come to one of the major cities in the US that is a Democratic stronghold, from out there somewhere, you are fast-forwarded into a reality of America that is largely unseen by the rest of the country. I will, however, give credit to the American people, the unwashed angry deplorables who are most likely to vote for a Donald Trump, for having 'the number' of these liberal run cities and states for years now. They are accurate in their scorn. I don't know how. But they've been on this shit forever and their perspective on realities and conditions and hypocrisies in places like New York and California have been spot on.

When you come to LA, you kind of get this clear vision of this country that answers the question you might not have even been asking. Where exactly are we going with all this? Because you out wherever you are, are going there. And, whether you like it or not, there is here. That's because this place is simply too big for what happens here not to spill out to the rest of the country. I mean, I had always heard, as goes California so goes the rest of the country... but I didn't really start to understand how... comprehensive and inescapable that was until maybe the last 15 years or so. The powers here dictate the conditions we all will live under. I can TELL you what you've seen change in the last two decades probably wherever you are that came directly from California but... I've already done it a hundred times.

One reason, of course, is sheer numbers. But that's complicated and hard for people to wrap their heads around so let's not even go there.

But one of the main components in all this is that the politics of this country, the issues and the focus on the Democratic side, is largely determined, and more importantly paid for, out of California by the super affluent and anywhere else that the super affluent have congregated. New York would also qualify as being a center of affluent control of the Democratic Party and, of course, the DC area is where a lot of the money and influence ends up so there is another center of elite Democratic control. And you certainly shouldn't go to sleep on money and influence from other wealthy western nations who are SO well represented in cities like LA.

So but here you get to see who these people really are. And you get to see where, as I said, we are really going with all this. If you spend time here your eyes are opened over time to so many things that this woman describes as red flags. I've described them here over the years so many times I won't bore you guys with another round of it all. Suffice to say that when I grew up, I thought that rich Democrats were all benevolent souls like the Kennedys. When I came to California I received and continue to be receptive to an ongoing education in what and who the most affluent and influential of the Democratic Party are. And, no, they're not the Kennedys.

The people who really fund and pull the strings on the Democratic side of things are cruel, cut-throat, power mad in ways that very practically acted upon every single day, have absolutely ZERO regard for the 'little people' in this country, etc., have so little use for so much of what they foster and force upon the of the country in terms of political justice and social benevolence etc. that it should and could and would make people's heads spin around on their necks.

Yet these very people own and control the Democratic Party and they are driving or riding on all of the current waves of passion on the American political landscape. But NOT, curiously, as you alluded to Howee, the real issue. Class inequalities in terms of things like opportunity and results.

You get little windows of reality coming your way out of this almost alien reality of California but your instincts are probably to turn away from those windows or think of things as just isolated incidents.

Ellen.

I can only BE shocked that anyone would be shocked. You would not be shocked if you lived here. Ellen and her show runners and the work environment THEY created is just one little sliver of a glimpse into who people are here.

And if these are the people who are telling the rest of America what and how to comport themselves in terms of everything from political outlooks down to personal behaviors in how we treat others... lol... it's just IMPOSSIBLE that people out in the country who identify so strongly with being liberal, or Democratic, or on the left, and as social justice warriors, it's impossible that those people are seeing what we see here up close in California or they would be deeply disillusioned themselves and somewhere along the path on a journey much like either this young woman or someone like me.

And yet people here concede voluntarily that they listen to and willingly and appreciatively absorb political influence from comedians. Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, John Oliver... they're not even from the United States! Trevor Noah is not yet even a US citizen! What they are is contract players who work for Viacom. And if you think that Viacom would be the conduit... that Viacom would use their airwaves and allow their contracted talent to sit there and spout off the actual political truths about America... I mean... I do understand and have to allow for the fact that so many people don't really or haven't really had things presented to them in the way that a jaded person from Los Angeles like me might put it... but come on people... lol... you can't be serious or WANT to be taken seriously if you take your political succor from the Trevor Noahs.

Viacom is THE MAN. lol. The People up on the Hill. In the mansions. They're playing us all, distracting us, dividing us, and on and on. While they're, of course, taking our money.

I would sincerely advocate or nominate this young woman and her actual life experience in America, where she grew up and was educated and worked on, as she put it, the front lines in the country where these policy ideas are becoming the environment of 'woke' identity politics, that is pushed everywhere in America, I would take her perspective before I would advocate giving one second of your attention to someone who is paid incredibly well by one of the largest media conglomerates to push those political perspectives onto you.

But that's just me.

The simplest way to put this is that the people who control the Democratic Party talk the talk, buy they don't walk the walk. They're like televangelists. It's a front. A show.

And that's what the two parties are. A show. Depending on the audience, Red or Blue, these ones are the bad guys and the others are the good guys. The stage is our entire national politics. Political theater is all it has been for many decades.

If you don't start off by saying I hate my fucking Democratic Party, it's controlled by fiendishly evil elites who are devouring the lower classes in this country while exercising absolute control over those lower and working and middle class American's ability to do ANYTHING about it... BY controlling what used to be the 'people's' party.... if you're not leading with that while looking and speaking to the current American political situation, then you're just simply not 'there' yet.

And I've resigned myself that most people, unfortunately for all of us, will never get there. This girl got there very early in life. I hope she continues on her path and that her eventual destination isn't the Republican Party or identifying as a conservative. Because what is needed is not flight, but fight. We need to destroy the modern Democratic Party and make it work, once again, for regular Americans.

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Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17

[jammerbirdi]

[Howee]

[jammerbirdi]

[tfan]

This video isn't under the "#WalkAway Campaign" YouTube account but it does have the #walkawaycampaign and #walkaway hash tags. Brandon Straka published a video back in Spring 2018, saying he was a lifelong Democrat and was leaving the party. It got some traction and people started publishing similar videos, a lot of which got added to the Straka channel. Soon there were dozens of them and now there are hundreds. He was a hairdresser in NYC and I think he now supports himself with the Walkaway Campaign and its activities (funded through donations I assume). They had at least one big event in Washington DC, which was mostly a get together or rally, but they also have had events (often canceled by theater landlords after local pressure) in big cities trying to convince people to leave the Democratic party.

I was thinking that these videos, which often featured non-white people, were reflective, tip-of-the-iceberg-style, of a significant change taking place in the electorate. But it had gotten going in the months leading up to the 2018 mid-term elections and the results of 2018 voting didn't show that any significant change had taken place as far as people being dissatisfied with the Democratic party.

[Howee]

[readyAIMfire53]

[delete entire diatribe]

FACT is there are FAR FAR FAR more people ditching the Repub Party than vice versa. And, beyond the party switching from R to D (which I've lost count of in the thousands), the longtime Repubs supporting Biden are well known and vocal.

The number of Dem identified people voting for cheeto is exceedingly small right now.

I grew up in LA and have lived in North Carolina for 35+ years now. I stay informed about what my progressive friends are doing and how they are winning elections in LA through HARD WORK - canvassing, phonebanking, town halls, etc. I know people who are successfully building low income housing in church parking lots.

Am I "starry eyed" about all Dems being angelic? That went overboard with Chappaquidick. Long, long time ago. But I go with the very, very different PLATFORMS of the two main parties. And the fact that the Repub Senators KNEW that cheeto was a crook and kept him in the white house.

I am out canvassing right now in North Carolina. Wealthy white men vote for their 401K because that's the only economy they care about. The MUCH MUCH larger numbers of people non-white, non-wealthy, not men tell me over and over and over and over that the Repubs don't give a FF about them. They tell me that with a big "DUH!" Like it's as plain as the nose on your face. And they are finding out how the "COVID relief for small business" funds got diverted to rich white male run businesses. This is what I find out going door to door here in Durham, North Carolina. Yes, we are a blue city in a purple state but we can carry a Dem over the top like we thankfully did with Dem Governor Cooper so we had a SANE response to COVID and the Repubs did not prevent our city from having a SANE response (like they wanted to).

But here's the really big deal: young girls are following their shero Greta and will soon be voting and replacing their grandparents in the voting booth. Young boys are following LeBron and the Parkland survivors who are voting NOW. And the grandparents? Starting to really understand - through COVID lack of response - that Repubs are not on their side. Grandparents are not going Repub at near the rate of previous elections and as their grandchildren replace them in the voting booths, numbers are going left - and quickly. Nobody thought Texas would be in play for Dems THIS year! And yet it is. Even if cheeto squeaks it out in Texas, every downballot race is leaning to the left far earlier than anybody predicted.

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Follow your passion and your life will be true down to your core.

~rAf

[pilight]