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Thread: Congrats US?

  1. #1
    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    Congrats US?

    After all American institutions proved how solid they are.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  2. #2
    MANICHAEAN MANICHAEAN's Avatar
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    Cause & Effect.

    Yes the institutions survived.

    Question. How do you stop future questionable contenders? (Psychiatric evaluation? )

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    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    A good question, Manichaean. And the dangerous precedent remains.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

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    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    The waiting list for green cards to the USA from certain countries are proof of the greatness of that country. Although I am not an American I absolutely Adore the Founding Fathers - and find myself quoting from them often and lots.

    “Those that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin
    Last edited by tonywalt; 01-07-2021 at 05:14 PM.

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    The Wolf of Larsen WolfLarsen's Avatar
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    Tem differencia nao entre Estados Unidos e Brasil, Danik. Sou iguais.
    There is no difference between the United States and Brazil.
    As coisas em Estados Unidos nao funciona igual de Brasil.
    Things do not function in the United States, just like Brazil.
    Eu morava em Brasil.
    I lived in Brazil.
    Mas Brasil e melhor dos Estados unidos.
    But Brazil is still better!
    Last edited by WolfLarsen; 01-08-2021 at 10:43 AM.
    "...the ramblings of a narcissistic, self-obsessed, deranged mind."
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    A User, but Registered! tonywalt's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WolfLarsen View Post
    Tem differencia nao entre Estados Unidos e Brasil, Danik. Sou iguais.
    There is no difference between the United States and Brazil.
    As coisas em Estados Unidos nao funciona igual de Brasil.
    Things do not function in the United States, just like Brazil.
    Eu morava em Brasil.
    I lived in Brazil.
    Mas Brasil e melhor dos Estados unidos.
    But Brazil is still better!
    I personally love the Congo. It's rich Francophone culture is something to behold.

  7. #7
    The Wolf of Larsen WolfLarsen's Avatar
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    Yes. It is like Québec has culture. English Canada does not. The latter is just a boring Xerox copy of the United States, albeit a less violent one.

    The USA is headed in a very bad direction. And this is scary for the whole world.

    Although I certainly don't want to get into a political discussion about the blue state and red state nonsense here. Except I will say that it's all a bunch of nonsense.
    Last edited by WolfLarsen; 01-08-2021 at 07:36 PM.
    "...the ramblings of a narcissistic, self-obsessed, deranged mind."
    My poetry, plays, novels, & other stuff on Amazon:
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    The Wolf of Larsen WolfLarsen's Avatar
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    Actually, I've done a pretty bad job of explaining how I feel about America in this thread. My apologies.
    I am an American. Half of my family are immigrants. Unfortunately, I do not speak their language. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.
    If I were to say how I feel about the USA, I'm sure many people of Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage would be insulted. I am very biased against the Anglo-Saxon Protestant "culture" that dominates here in the USA.
    I love Latin America. Sadly, my Portuguese is fading. My Spanish is still strong. I feel that the people of Latin America are wonderful!
    Southern Europe reminds me of Latin America.
    The United States is an "industrialized country" without industry. I am currently living in the epicenter of the USA's "Rust Belt". The USA is becoming a basket case of a nation.
    I miss Brazil so much!
    At times, Brazilians get frustrated with the lack of infrastructure, depending which part of Brazil.
    The United States on the other hand - much of the infrastructure is from the 19th century - and is falling apart!
    Many Brazilians think that the USA has its thing together. With all due respect, they're wrong.
    The Brazilians, the other Latin Americans, and the southern Europeans have a warmth and a passion about things that many Americans do not have.
    Some Blacks have this passion, as do some white ethnics. "White ethnics" in America are whites who are not Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
    Even amongst atheist artists in the USA, you can see this division, with many Anglo-Saxon Protestant atheist artists continuing with the dry, puritanical, minimalist art & culture of their people. Atheist artists with a Catholic heritage on the other hand, have a more passionate, more exuberant, more sensual style about their art and writing. This may be to truth, or it may just be my bias. And I am definitely biased.
    I just can't stop pissing all over Anglo-Saxon Protestant "culture". And I don't apologize. The fact that we "white ethnics" become more Anglo-Saxonized with each passing generation is something that makes us culturally part of this "wasteland". We white ethnics lose something when we become Anglo Saxonized.
    An important aspect of my writing is a rebellion against Anglo-Saxon Protestant "culture" in America, that seeks to impose its dry, puritanical, and passionless monotony on the rest of us.
    Last edited by WolfLarsen; 01-08-2021 at 09:40 PM.
    "...the ramblings of a narcissistic, self-obsessed, deranged mind."
    My poetry, plays, novels, & other stuff on Amazon:
    http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr...or=Wolf Larsen

  9. #9
    Inexplicably Undiscovered
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016 View Post
    After all American institutions proved how solid they are.
    Yes, but that horrible day was outrageous, frightening, and downright heart breaking.

    I kept thinking of the quotation of the underrated Alfred E, Smith: "The only cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy."

    That means exactly what it says: government by the people, not thugs or insurrectionists or worshippers of an autocrat.

    Pray for the elimination of the pandemic. Pray for the disinfecting sunshine of truth. Pray for racial justice at last.

  10. #10
    MANICHAEAN MANICHAEAN's Avatar
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    The frightening thing Aunty was that any sane person could see it coming.

    What Bernstein called "the mad king" was getting more and more erratic, and yet the very institutions set up to defend democracy were either over ridden and powerless on one side, or supine and career minded on the other.

    But I have faith that good will come out of it. The enemies of the USA are smirking now, but underestimate the strength and re-emergence of the true values of American society.

  11. #11
    MANICHAEAN MANICHAEAN's Avatar
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    Don’t you just love these broad group categorizations?

    Yesterday’s contribution was “Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture,” filled to the very brim with Jove like imagery of: sackcloth and ashes, repression; whilst spectacularly encompassing a lack of; personal passion, exuberance & sensuality.

    This has as much credibility as the Q’on branch of the Micky Mouse Appreciation Society.

    Let us just abandon generalities for the moment. What do we mean by Anglo-Saxon?

    Does it comprise in the historical sense; Normans, Celts, Franks, Danes, Alemanni, Picts, Jutes & Lombard's?

    Or are we talking about a perceived home grown American Anglo Saxon culture, based presumably on the beliefs of; white, anti-immigrant, working class, poorly educated individuals? I think this was the point that was inadequately trying to be made.

    Next the Protestant aspect. Once again a portrayal of post Reformation dullness and repression.

    But it all misses the point in the unnecessary generalization.

    Are Protestant poets like: John Bunyan, Edmund Spencer & John Donne less passionate in their writings than Catholic counterparts like: J.H. Newman, Hilaire Belloc or Chaucer?

    Conclusion:

    Not all Anglo-Saxons are cold blooded, repressive, stiff upper lip kill joys, lacking imagination.

    Endeavour not to fall into the mistake of those “trip off the tongue” prejudicial generalizations.

    Congratulations to all: warm blooded, hand gesturing, exuberant, expressive; South Americans, Africans and indigenes south of Calais. After all my first wife was French, though I felt at times like I had married the French Revolution.

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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Brazil is one of the few countries that's more corrupt, racist and authoritarian than Trump's America. They didn't abolish slavery until 1888.

    My reaction to the storming of the Capitol: Where was Antifa when we needed them?

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    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    "Ecurb- Brazil is one of the few countries that's more corrupt, racist and authoritarian than Trump's America. They didn't abolish slavery until 1888."

    Thanks for the praise Ecurb, though I doubt that you are the best authority to pronounce yourself on that.

    I am with you Aunty, but I think it could have ended still worse. Most of your lawmakers, no matter which side they are on still have a strong sense of duty and a respect for the Constitution.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

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    The Wolf of Larsen WolfLarsen's Avatar
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    I'd love to join the conversation about how America is going down a bad path. And the liberal Democrats are just as much to blame as the conservative Republicans.
    I have many friends who are both liberal and conservative, who vote Democrat or Republican. I have no problem with them.
    But I often refrain from speaking my mind around fanatical liberals and conservatives, (I am neither). My experience is that many fanatical liberals & conservatives only believe in freedom of speech for themselves.
    No, I don't vote Dixiecrat. I grew up in a place called "segregation city". It's one of the largest cities here in the USA. And it was the Democrats that made it "segregation city". And I've only been to 50 countries, but I have never seen no place more segregated than "segregation city" USA.
    Brazil is very racist, as somebody else pointed out. I think it's about half as racist as the United States of America. I always thought that the rich whites in Brazil were far more racist than the working-class whites. Usually, working-class whites in Brazil live in the same neighborhoods as working-class Blacks, although not always.
    I find it rather ironic that liberals support Joe Biden because Donald trumpet is racist. Joe Biden has a racist rap sheet going back to ancient times!
    And the liberals on the white side of "segregation city" pay extra rent not to live next door to black people.
    I, on the other hand, a working-class white man, live surrounded by black people. And yet, it seems like bourgeois liberals deride all of us working-class white people as being Archie Bunker, racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Working-class liberals, on the other hand, often disagree with this. I have often been discriminated against by bourgeois liberals for being working-class. Bourgeois conservatives have treated me much the same way. Like garbage. Like "white trash".
    Of course, having said these things, the narrative of the bourgeois liberals is that everyone that doesn't agree with them is some kind of fascist. Nothing could be further from the truth. And it is the Democratic Party that has a history of supporting fascism and the Ku Klux Klan and lynching black people. And let us not forget, that the Democrats came up with the "right to work laws" that had a negative impact on working-class whites & blacks & Latinos, making it harder for us to unionize.
    Anyway, not all working-class white people that vote Republican are fascists. I know what fascists are. I am part Jewish. And in self-defense I had to fight off fascists - real fascists - with my fists here in "segregation city", a place run by the Democrats.
    Anyway, I respect all of you to have your own point of view. I hope that we can keep any debate civilized. Thank you.
    But looking at the pictures of the Capitol Hill riots I only saw one Confederate flag. That's one Confederate flag too many. However, that doesn't mean that the other people were fascists. And anyway, the United States government through the CIA has sponsored far more chaos in the national capitals of other countries. And the CIA did this with the support of both the Democrats and Republicans alike. My guess is is that the politicians of both political parties will use the Capitol Hill riots as an excuse to further attack our civil liberties. And as a writer I find that disgusting. The biggest threat to our freedom of speech as writers are those politicians on Capitol Hill of both political parties.
    "...the ramblings of a narcissistic, self-obsessed, deranged mind."
    My poetry, plays, novels, & other stuff on Amazon:
    http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr...or=Wolf Larsen

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    Ecurb Ecurb's Avatar
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    Sorry, Danik. I forgot I was insulting your country (although of course I wouldn't mind insulting JCamilo's country). You are correct that I don't know much about Brazil -- I've never been there. Here in the U.S., though, we read about Bolsonaro's corruption, about attacks bordering on genocide on indigenous people in the Amazon, and about violent and racist favelas.

    The U.S. has its own problems, of course. The left is almost as bigoted, intolerant, and violent as the right. My son is a newspaper reporter, and rioters from both the left and the right despise the press, and threaten reporters with violence. Trump is partly to blame, with his constant criticism of "fake news", but antifa is just as guilty (acc. my son, who has covered the riots in Portland).
    '

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