Of course Dem Presidents have been responsible for innocent lives lost. I told you, I couldn't care less what political party someone represents. I however can't help but notice the Republicans seem more war hawkish than Dems.
Republicans always have some new, dangerous enemy country that the story inevitably gets told....we have to stop them from getting nukes, sponsoring terror, blah, blah, blah. Just the last few decades, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and round and round. Meanwhile, seemingly don't care about the crazed lunatic in N.K. that already has nukes but no known oil reserves so not worried about them.
I don't know about that. We ran out of bombs (temporarily) when Obama was President, and he took us from two wars to seven (including Libya, Syria, and Yemen). The US also began funding the genocide in Gaza when Biden was in office. Republicans may have a reputation for being the bigger war hawks, but Dems give them a run for their money.
Also, a leaked email from Hillary Clinton advisor Neera Tanden revealed that she believed Americans would "choose not to engage in the world" if we didn't take the oil from the nations we invaded. The only difference is Trump was dumb enough to say the same thing publicly. What separates Trump from other politicians is the lack of a filter.
Billionaires for the most part these days don't own anything tangible. They own crypto (what even is that?), tech stocks, A.I. etc. That means they're entirely vulnerable to stock market crashes.
How do you get the stock market to crash? Hmmmm......power to the people...the consumers. That's what I meant when I said most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to do it. People have convinced themselves they can't live without Google, Meta, Starlink, Wal-mart, McDonalds.......they're unwilling to do mass boycotts, put down their phones, support local Mom'n Pop stores, rein in unnecessary spending, etc.
A lot of the fast-food junk should certainly be cut out, and I think stepping away from some of these social media sites would be good for our mental health.
That said, I agree with what others said about crashing the stock market hurting the middle class and the affordability issues of buying local. You can't spend what you don't have, and many people live right on the poverty line. A lot of those people also rely on SNAP, and I'm not even sure how many local mom and pop stores are able to take that.
As for phones, I'm sure most people could get by with a basic cell instead of a smart phone if they wanted to. I kind of miss my basic phone, to be honest. It was nice not being bombarded with constant notifications, and I'm sure the constant doom scrolling hasn't done my stress or blood pressure any favors. But getting the world as a whole to get on board at this point would be near impossible. It's become an addiction, just like the fast food, the social media, and the convenience of Amazon and Walmart grocery pickup.
The prices are still expensive, but comparatively speaking, they're always going to be cheaper than the local homegrown store in town. It sucks, but that's the reality. So the billionaires have a stranglehold on both the consumers and the levers of government, which gives them total control. I used to believe we could vote our way out of it, but money is so deeply entrenched in politics that I think it's futile now. The people who go into politics with their idealism intact usually get co-opted one way or another.
As for woke, isn't it better to be a forward thinker (progressive) than backwards (MAGA where they can't even pinpoint a time they want to go back to)?
But by the same token, can the left pinpoint what it means to be a forward thinker? It seems like there's a lot of division over that as well.
I've always considered myself rather progressive, but I've been told that if I don't believe certain things 100%, than I'm some type of phobe and not an ally.
Generally speaking, the people who hold themselves to such high standards describe themselves as "woke." They're the self-appointed spokespeople for the marginalized.
