The Mueller Report thread

[Bengalzona]

(05-24-2019, 09:48 AM)GMDino Wrote: I'm going to start with the end:  There are two main times I talk about DJT:  On this forum and when my mother starts one of her rants (in person or online) about him...using words that can't be used on this forum. 

I have a wonderful life outside of here.  This is where I share my thoughts and feelings about political and religious issues.  And I appreciate the outlet.  I don't want anyone to misconstrue that into thinking I'm one of the people out on the street everyday carrying signs and totally wrapped up in politics.

However...

Whenever such a conversation comes up I want people not to just admit Trump is a liar and a cheat and a conman, I want them to come to the realization that the American people have become IMMUNE to these kinds of people in politics and allowing them to stay in power.

I sincerely want change.  

I sincerely want people to read more, to educate themselves, to care enough to understand who they are voting for and then to hold them accountable when they are in office.  I do it at every level when I vote.  I have not voted for a friend of our family (twice) because I found out some of the things he was doing on the job and how he was treating some constituents.  He still won.  Small town, "everybody knows him".  He wins by less and less, but its politics at its finest.  He's not Trump level bad, but he's not doing what he was elected to do.  But he has "friends" and people "like him" as a person so its easier to just vote for the guy you know than take a chance with someone new who might be "different".

And I'm no fool.  (I'm not!  Shut up!) I know I'm fighting an uphill battle that is trying to change an entire culture that is now dominated by the fracturing of our society thanks to social media and 24 hour news cycles.  I'm a media guy.  I get it.  But that doesn't mean I won't continue to talk about it and try to get more people to change.

In the end it's not just about DJT.  I haven't liked him since long before he ran for POTUS.  He's just the great big example I can point to to show people what happens when the electorate is lazy and/or unwilling to be informed about what will happen AFTER the person takes office.  

Unfortunately sometimes its takes a natural disaster to get everyone's attention get them behind creating change.  

Then as years go by it fades from the collective memory enough that we slide backwards.

Personal observation about those last two lines:

I am the President of an parent organization that assists a program my son is involved in.  The year before he joined was apparently a very bad year.  Parents fighting, the program in shambles.  More than a few parents told me that meetings would just be hours long screamfests with parents accusing each other of horrible things.  One board member said someone called her boss and accused her of stealing from work!  (She stepped down immediately because she did NOT steal from work but did not want the intimidation any longer)   Later the entire board had been replaced because the previous board all quit (after winning re-election) because they didn't think the organization could survive without them.  

The year we join there is a new director of the program and the people who stepped up to fill the board roles were good people who wanted to make things right for the kids.  Within less than a year my wife was on the board.  Two months later I was President.  (That's a long story in and of itself.  Not something I was aiming for but I was glad to accept the role.)

Over the last two years we have made an incredible turnaround.  The program is thriving.  The parents are happy(ish) and all the in-fighting has stopped.  Parents who had left, came back.  And they told me horror stories of what used to go on.  And they tell us how happy they are to NOT see that kind of behavior anymore.  We will leave next year with the organization in a much better place than it was when we joined.

But the problem I have seen coming for the past year is that the parents who were around when things were REALLY bad are mostly gone.  They could accept a small setback or a misstep here and there because it was NOTHING like the way things were before the calm now.  But the NEW parents don't know what that was like.  They will see any "bad" thing that happens sa possibly the "worst" thing that has happened becuase that is all the experience they have.  And then you have to run a little tighter ship.  You have to be able to deal with people who expect even more.  And I am done in one year.  I will not be able to help my fellow board members (all of whom have at least one year more than me left) deal with the changes.  And that's the nature of these things.  There is a turnover of people and suddenly you have new perspectives that don't take into account the things that happened in the past.

Unless you educate them.

In our case we don't go on and on about how bad it was before WE came in and straightened things out.  There is no need to degrade the people before us that we didn't even know.  But what we do do and is have system where complaints and problems can be handle quickly and efficiently.  We recognized what is happening and adapted out strategies.  And we try to educate all the parents on how we do things and why.  (Transparency is the biggest factor.)

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of saying (and avoiding doing any real work at work on the Friday before a holiday) that we can't just accept things because other people say "eh", or because our talking about makes other people mad that we keep bringing it up.  So if it's just within my circle or here or on any other social media continuing to show how Trump isn't the cause he's the result of the system being broken will bring good in the end IMHO.

In your recent responses here, I see language such as "people should..." and "I want...". There is nothing wrong with that. Everyone has some amount of judgment and has personal desires. So you want to affect some behavioral changes in other people. While that sounds manipulative when written in that way, it is actually part of the human experience. My wife wants to affect behavioral changes on me all the time.

The need to call out behaviors and attempt to change them is not so much the problem. The methods of doing it can be the problem. If you are trying to educate someone who is dead-set against being educated on a matter, you are sort of doomed to failure before you even start. Especially if you repeatedly use methods to reach people that aren't working. And it really wouldn't matter how correct your facts are or how much good you are trying to accomplish.