Let's Compare 10 Years Ago Versus Today....

We have serious issues.....

I often ponder how we got to where we are right now. I am an 80s child. Born in 1977. It's not uncommon for people to miss the days of their youth, but from my perspective, things have massively changed for the worse over the last decade.

Let's compare 2006 to 2016.

Cellphones were just starting to become "smart". Most millenials were either too young to care much about politics or they simply didn't care regardless. Growing up, I never had friends who cared about politics, not even in my twenties! This was just the way it always was. Politics in general, aside from in the 60s perhaps (civil rights era) were not a popular fad among youth.

In 2006, mud was flung as usual by the two parties. Bush was the president and was insulted, called a war criminal etc etc. One thing to note however, I don't recall him being accused of racism or many other isms. He was just seen as an idiot and a jerk and as an elitist oil grabbing baffon by many.

There was no "SJW" and although there were some pc issues like, dont call mentally handicapped people retards (even tho "mentally retarded" was the learned accepted term and not an insulting one) and some other pc jargon was around, the culture of the "offended" had not yet taken over society.

OWS wasn't even around yet, let alone BLM and all the madness surrounding accusations of anything from racism to mysogany, to bigotry, and even the often politisized term 'hate'.

2006 was not a great time by any stretch, the seeds were already planted, but 2016 is in full bloom comparatively.

I think we are witnessing social madness, a severe level of brainwashing never seen before. All of the indoctrunation of our youth is finally being brought to fruition. I can't believe I would ever say 2006 was a better time than now. But here we are, in a world of madness we only could imagine in 2006.

a reply to: Wookiep

I feel ya man!

I have a couple same sort of concept timely pieces such as this I've been gradually working at here and there lately.

I used to march side by side with the liberals against the Neocons everyday for years.

Everyday I'd see them lambast Republicans for blindly following (even outright worshiping as "God's Appointed") Bush, and all of his crimes, abuses of power, and lies, and hypocrisies, and so on.

And they were right!

And I was all over Bush, and always trying to wake up the Republican's to what he really was, too. And the Democrat's loved it when I did.

And the Republican types always labelled me a Democrat, sort of stuff.

And then came Obama. Before he was even elected the Dem's were ALREADY doing the same exact blind worship stuff as the Bush people they just spent years trying to wake up the Bush people from doing. Before he was even elected and I started comparing his record to the worst things about Bush, the Liberals were already commenting calling me a Neocon sort of stuff.

Now I can kind of understand the logic winning by any (well non-criminal) 'means necessary' in that time as the NEOCONS HAD TO GO, as especially without Ron Paul at the helm of the GOP the Republicans / Neocons did need to be punished.

But following Obama's taking office, instead of backpedal a tad now that they had the POTUS reigns again, they dug in deeper.

By the time Obamacare became the big debate the MSM etc was already pushing this paradigm where if you oppose Obama's policies then that meant you were a RACIST:

There are pages of MSM videos like this in Youtube (just search "obamacare racist").

So there it was. As soon as they 'finally' got their "black" president instead it it being a dawn of upper heights of cooling of race relations they turned racism into their Black Jack Club to bludgeon people with for disagreeing.

Obamacare wasn't even the 'socialized medicine' the Dem's had been campaigning on at least as far back as Michael Moore's piece, instead it was mandatory corporate health insurance fascism.

Yet straight from Bush's playbook, Obama didn't even really take the gloves off his NWO hands until after re-election. And yet these folks still push on today worshiping him despite all of what should be entirely obvious to all of them from all of those years of studying the absurdities of the Bush worshipers. At least most of them had come or were starting to come around about the time Bush was on the way out, yet these Lib's are instead doubling down on their 'Obama administration ala Hillary', the Identity Politics, and so on.

They got their "Black" president, they got their Gay marriage (FINALLY national politics don't have to get mucked up with that damn issue, BTW), and they even got their uncompromising transgender elementary school restrooms, and yet instead of rejoice and ease up on the Social Group Warfare (SGW) stuff they're only turning up the heat and starting riots, their reverse bigotry stuff is fueling cops getting shot, and so on.

Instead of put the heat on Obama about the main cause of too many cops AND blacks getting over-profiled (the War On Drugs), or at least keep the heat on Obama for police training reform, nope, instead that logic causing social chaos they're now pushing it en masse via politicians, the Media, entertainment, etc, while ramming it home the hardest in college campuses across the US (and beyond for that matter).

I've been just blown away about how far they've fallen after they should be mostly satisfied with getting their way.

"Social Justice" = PAYBACK plain and simple. The weird thing though is even privileged white liberals want payback against other commoner whites for some bizarre reason.

This stuff is so outlandishly over the top social madness I couldn't even see it coming back in the day. The Lib's they used to really make sense on so much stuff like basically everything they criticized Bush and his follower for, which is nuts because when you really get down to it, aside from social issues like gay marriage, Obama's really the same kind of creature as Bush. Almost verbatim I could go on for pages demonstrating, and I haven't even been following the candidacy these past 8 years!

I just don't even recognize progressives any more from what I knew them as. We were buddies. Yet now I'm their sworn enemy, their nemesis, for being center of Center and anti-racist.

Wake up people. There's just so much at stake now with actual futurist stuff (emerging technology etc) that LITERALLY threatens the extinction of the species quite possibly within a decade. You got what you wanted before, now its time to grow up and start working together to ensure our technology doesn't wipe us out or worse. This isn't a game!

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

I am so glad you posted what you just did. I wanted to add 2008 (obama) and the years preceding it to the OP but I didn't want to make the thread too drawn out.

I remember 2008 quite well. I had limited knowledge of Ron Paul till the 2012 elections but I will say this... 2008 was the first time I was ever accused of being "racist". I have never once cared about skin color, but for the sole reason of not liking the policies presented by Barrack Obama, nor willing to vote for him, I was labeled a racist for the first time in my life. This wasn't done via internet, it was said by a very close personal friend.

That was the moment I realised something was very wrong.

I used to be in agreement with dems in 2012, on many issues. But the issues can no longer be discussed because the issues discussed now by the left have nothing to do with the solutions, only accusations of racism etc etc. Sad.

After 2012 things went down, badly...

a reply to: Wookiep

Dig. For 2008 was when I was done with even looking at national left/right politics after the GOP endlessly firebombed Ron paul to prevent him from beating Obama (the only one who coulda, shoulda). They literally handed Obama the POTUS by then shoving that lame duck neocon and the 'crazy quazi-Canadian lady' up there for him to knock down. I did happen to notice the Obamacare race baiting thing, but I didn't even keep up on that whole Tea Party fiasco

In 2010 I returned for a minute and tore it up with my other usual bigger picture technology stuff, but I just couldn't look al the left/right+MSM machine anymore (at least not until after Obama's re-election when there might be a chance at getting thru to them like how getting thru to Bush people was IMPOSSIBLE before his re-election).

(similar to your piece here, I'll be posting about what happened to the Tea Party & Occupy Movements very soon maybe tonight...)

a reply to: Substracto

Agreed. 2012 was a huge turning point. After the 2012 media fiasco against Ron Paul, all hope was lost. Many old well meaning Paul supporters became almost instantly slaves jaded by the "SJW" agenda. It has been a very hard and sad thing to watch.

originally posted by: Wookiep
In 2006, mud was flung as usual by the two parties. Bush was the president and was insulted, called a war criminal etc etc. One thing to note however, I don't recall him being accused of racism or many other isms. He was just seen as an idiot and a jerk and as an elitist oil grabbing baffon by many.

2005, Hurricane Katrina opened the door for the bloviating idiot Kanye West to tell a nationally televised audience:
"George Bush doesn't care about black people." which was quickly picked up by other idiots and changed to "George Bush hates black people." Combined with his little soliloquy of complaint over how the media portrayed blacks in wrecked New Orleans as "looters" while showing whites as "survivors" (please ignore the fact that it was actually the media showing looters carrying TVs, electronics, and a basket full of Heinikens versus survivors carrying bread, canned goods, and non-alcoholic drinks they had taken from abandoned stores... because that breaks West's narrative) and we saw an avalanche of horsecrap born on that day. His words and position were picked up by a society of sheep who all began to bleat his message back and forth to each other until they believed their own bullcrap.

That marked the beginning of this entire world of nonsense we find ourselves in currently.

a reply to: Wookiep

The 'SJWs' werent needed, there has always been people worried about social justice and fairness, who did know where and how to stand, without needing free publicity, without looking ridiculous, and they would achieve their goals too, they know/knew it does take time, no need for instantaneous revolutions just because... the people know those wont hold in the long therm.

Anyways, I agree with you, its madness out there.

In 2006 Ketsuko and I were doing well enough to get our first house. She had a full time job as a speech clinician for special needs children. I was getting raises above the standard of living at my place of work. We were hiring people at my place of work as full company employees.

By early 2009 Ketsuko had lost her job due to lack of clientele. My health care premiums and deductibles doubled. By 2010 I had to raid my 401K to keep from losing our house to foreclosure. We managed to renegotiate our mortgage in 2012 with a better rate.

In 2016 Ketsuko still can't find a full-time job. At my place of work we are only hiring people as temporary employees, or contract workers if they are lucky. Either way the new jobs only last 12 months. Increased regulations have made every facet of my job much more difficult to do, for the same type of products that we have always produced.

In short, the last 7-8 years of our lives have been stagnant, living paycheck to paycheck.

I get an annual bonus from my place of work still. We used to use it for savings, football and paying off debts and an occasional vacation. Now we don't go to football, we don't save, and the bonus is eaten up to send our son to private school (thanks common core!)

I'm ready for a change.

originally posted by: Wookiep
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

2008 was the first time I was ever accused of being "racist". I have never once cared about skin color, but for the sole reason of not liking the policies presented by Barrack Obama, nor willing to vote for him, I was labeled a racist for the first time in my life. This wasn't done via internet, it was said by a very close personal friend.

That was the moment I realised something was very wrong.

I've been thinking something similar, and increasingly more so in the last few months. 1985 baby here, but I can relate to everything you are saying. I fear that PC has become a very powerful weapon to keep any of the rational thinkers from adding anything logical to very important discussions. You don't like Trump? Well you must not like freedom. You don't like Obama, you're a racist. You don't like a bad thing that a gay person did, you must be homophobic, and so on. Before you know it, the original topic turns into a chaotic mess of pointing fingers and outraged comments and responses that have NOTHING to do with the message itself. If you're a bit of introvert like myself you end up just shutting down and not wanting to have an opinion on anything. I guess that is the golden outcome for the powers that be. Keep us all fighting each other, keep the headlines entirely misleading and have people arguing about a twisted and totally taken out of context headline of news rather than any of the actual true content.

To clarify, I have never been racist, I have zero issues with LGBTQ, I just care that you are a decent person and not an a**!

Every day I shake my head in exasperation a little harder than the last. I keep thinking it must be a bad dream and people will snap out of it at some point. I'm starting to think that's not going to be the case.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Wow, you know, I was not aware of that Kanye West debacle until just now. Admittedly, I don't think I was paying as much attention back then. It just goes to show that a decade ago, albiet 2005, the tides started shifting dramatically in the wrong direction.

Thanks for the post.

a reply to: Wookiep

Watch the video on Youtube. You can actually pinpoint the exact moment Mike Meyers' brain kicks in and tells his body "Dive! Dive! Dive! Red alert! Mission aborted!"

originally posted by: Teikiatsu
In 2006 Ketsuko and I were doing well enough to get our first house. She had a full time job as a speech clinician for special needs children. I was getting raises above the standard of living at my place of work. We were hiring people at my place of work as full company employees.

By early 2009 Ketsuko had lost her job due to lack of clientele. My health care premiums and deductibles doubled. By 2010 I had to raid my 401K to keep from losing our house to foreclosure. We managed to renegotiate our mortgage in 2012 with a better rate.

In 2016 Ketsuko still can't find a full-time job. At my place of work we are only hiring people as temporary employees, or contract workers if they are lucky. Either way the new jobs only last 12 months. Increased regulations have made every facet of my job much more difficult to do, for the same type of products that we have always produced.

In short, the last 7-8 years of our lives have been stagnant, living paycheck to paycheck.

I get an annual bonus from my place of work still. We used to use it for savings, football and paying off debts and an occasional vacation. Now we don't go to football, we don't save, and the bonus is eaten up to send our son to private school (thanks common core!)

I'm ready for a change.

Ever thought of one of you going back to school?

Or moving to a new city?

OPPORTUNITY doesn't come to you.

Bootstraps aren't just for the YOUNG to pull on.

a reply to: DanteGaland

We are paying college debt. The last thing we need is more.

We have thought about moving, but he's 15 years into his career with a pension plan and retirement savings. He is looking into a Masters program to go with the two Bachelors he already has, not counting that he has more than accrued Ph-commensurate experience at his current job. He is well respected where he is at.

Leaving to go elsewhere for me means moving to higher cost of living market for a job for me and potentially scrapping his career for it.

Me going back to school at this point in time is picking up more debt we don't need even if it does put us off paying those debts for a few years. The type of job I could expect to get from a new program would not make enough to cover the added expense. The kinds of jobs I could expect to get with what I do have would be fine, but the market needs to open up with more opportunities so that there are more jobs for all the people competing for them. As it is, the market is cramped to where there are only two or three openings in a year ... maybe and many more people then than seeking those spots. I can land the interviews, but I have yet to seal the deal.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Yeah, I remember now that you brought it up. I hadn't made too much a mental note of that before now.

Loved that "Looter" meme! That was a riot there was a whole website dedicated to it. Even the black guy at my work was LOL over all those meme images of the Heineken Looter.

Totally different time...

For me looking back, I always considered the 2000 election as a turning point...

The lengthy televised chad counting fiasco burned up valuable transition time for Bush/Gore who would take the oath....

Clinton didn't care, he used our military to deflect from his own personal misjudgements...

IMO. we have been dealing with administrations that were hamstrung by Clinton, and have become comfortable with the fact that "we can do no wrong" just look at Bill....

As always, YMMV

a reply to: TheAmazingYeti

Ah, yes, the first of the failed doom predictions ... ice free Arctic by blah blah date and all that. England never seeing snow ...

a reply to: Wookiep

Ah Ha,
now your Gen is starting to take notice.
A good thing, but don't let it get the best of you.

P.S. Maybe it is better that i don't know,
but what the heck is SWJ ?

Best

originally posted by: Wildmanimal
but what the heck is SWJ ?

It's a total disaster in social affairs: