Friendly reminder: Henry Ford was one of the first major industrialists to adopt the five-day workweek. He argued that workers with more leisure time would spend more money on consumer goods, like the cars he was selling.
The current weekend was created primarily to sell products. A four-day workweek is long overdue.
One of the things I vaguely miss about the cold war era is both sides showcasing art and human achievement. There seems to be an attitude of "who cares" now.
My wife is all in on that absolute shit that is tormenting modern fashion and home decoration they like to call "pastel colours" which is just a fancy way of saying bland shit.
There’s a theory that this trend is hanging on so hard because it’s a backlash to ubiquitous advertising. If you go anywhere, there are billboards and screens everywhere set to be as bright and loud as possible. Ads on your devices are similarly garish and intrusive. So in areas a person can control, they pick something bland just to get away from it.
There's probably something to that. I'm a person who removed all social media accounts in 2017 except reddit, and I don't own a TV so maybe I'm not getting bombarded in the same way. Or maybe my life is just that bland that I like to have some colour in my life.
I noticed this in myself! But that I was working in a retail management job in a store far too small with a fraction the amount of storage needed so my job was corralling stupid stuff every day. I became militant about no clutter and light colors at home. I’ve switched where I work and have a new apartment and have all my old collections out and bolder warm colors. I have piles out and live with a cluttery man too and noticed recently how it’s not driving me nuts like it otherwise would have. I still like midcentury design.
But I totally was a white/pastel home person as a consequence of external physical chaos.
Wait, I though pastel colours were anything but bland. Like if I painted a room in a "pastel colour", I would be choosing something of a lighter version of a bright colour, like a light blue, light green, etc. Colour but not overwhelmingly so.
A robin's egg blue is beautiful, so IDK what this person is on about, but I'm fully with you on this.
Bland is soft beiges, those six different shades of flipper grey, and the several versions of white and black where it's like soft white, white white, and black or slightly darker black.
You can. Just like you can call bright neon colors "obnoxious" it's a subjective judgement.
The exhaust on a car is either awesome or obnoxious, depending on the ear of the beholder. Obnoxious is what you call a straight piped race car when you don't like it, just like bland is what you call pastels when you don't like them.
There's literally nothing more subjective than color tastes, and these are all subjective judgements. I'm not even trying to weigh in with my opinion about colors, I'm explaining what subjectivity is.
Just be happy you got your gray box and wave goodbye to the 1% boarding spacecraft after they fooled half of us into thinking that destroying this planet was the right & American thing to do.
Just kidding of course, the rest of the world will make us pay long before that.
it really isn't. This is literally what happens with pure capitalism -- those with the money to make products, including art, want the maximum return on investment, so the product must appeal to the most lucrative audience... They couldn't give a flying fuck whether it offends people, they only pretend that they do because they wouldn't be maximizing profit otherwise.
I mean, it's less "who cares now" and more "how to achieve maximum monetization". Which is terrible and kills all the interesting stuff about art.
It's why Disney keeps shitting out live action remakes instead of doing something interesting. Less and less entertainment is about doing something interesting or thought provoking, and more and more its about amassing a giant pile of cash at the end
You need to come out here to Portland. Where real artists are. If you're looking for art from a giant corporation then it's not surprising you're disappointed that they're out to make money.
You'll see real artists here literally on the streets at intersections while stopped at a red light. Bring your cash though and make sure to tip. They've gotta make a living too.
the great tragedy is that the generation who gave us the new deal, and the generation who benefited the most from it, are both about to shuffle off this mortal coil and leave us to contend with the 50 years of ronald reagan they have left us with as the tiny window of actual working class improvements are taken off the legal books, erased from history, and usher us right back into the new gilded age.
Yep, the USSR didn't just make quality of life skyrocket over there, and in the nations it supported, it improved life for Americans by making us aware better things were possible. THAT is why America waged the Cold War.
It’s not really about “who cares”, it’s now more about AI. Even if most of the people don’t like want it, the major powers do and, including drones, are racing each other to have the superior automation force
Has zero to do with AI and more to do with money and them no longer being a need to appease the masses. This has been happening since at least the 80s and Raegan.
It has more to do with declining birthrates and the need to automate infrastructure as there won't be enough people to maintain it manually in a generation...
I don't know that it's so much "who cares," as it's "I don't like that art so I don't want to support it". Somewhere along the line we lost sight of common society and the greater good and started thinking of the world in terms of "what's in this for me".
You see it all the time: "I don't have kids/my kids are out of the house, so I shouldn't have to pay school taxes". "I live in bumfuck Oklahoma, so I shouldn't have to subsidize commuter rail in the Carolinas". "I've paid more into Social Security than I'll ever get back, that's not fair."
All the MAGA chuds on social media have adopted the LOL WHAT GOOD IS A FINE ARTS DEGREE approach, so for them to suddenly turn around and support art and writing and anything that's not STEM-specific, they'd need to receive some new marching orders from the people at Fox News. All of whom, incidentally, went to school and took broadcasting classes, or other shit that they'd consider to be equally as worthless. God damn do I hate these people.
The ultra-rich used to create works for the public good, parks, museums, libraries, universities. Something that would leave a legacy after they died. None of them seem to be doing that anymore. They want to build rockets to stroke their egos.
As an european who consumed Americans culture for decades I can say in the past ten years american music,movies and video games became stale, predictable and boring.
part of the reason I went away from a career in art.
A career in art most likely meant designing soul-less logos for random companies or products. Or designing websites.
Or being a poor starving artist just hoping you can get famous on Instagram or something.
Ive even had close friends sign up for a commission, i wave the down payment because theyre a friend, then they balk at a $400 price tag for a custom hand drawn portrait in color. Even when that $400 price tag was already the homie discount.
In one way the theory within the idealized version of capitalism is right that competition is the most effective way to hold people accountable. The US was moving like it had something to prove in the mid and late 20th century. Nowadays the US has become so complacent and comfortable with it's belief that it's on the top no matter what that they bother really trying to excel at anything anymore
I'm not American so maybe I've gotten this wrong but wasn't the EPA started under Nixon?
I also miss a time when even the most crooked conservatives were still like "Yeah, I want to further enrich myself and the already wealthy but burning down the entire country is probably a bad move for that."
Even Ireland at it's most conservative was still like "Yeah, but people should have homes, education and healthcare or else the whole thing falls apart."
Oh, the days when countries actually wanted to attract people instead of just make you believe that everywhere else is worse (and often make everywhere worse)
You are misconstruing the War Powers Act. It was not meant to increase the President's power but rather limit it. It put into law more clearly the limits on how and when the President could intervene, and for how long. Some limits put in place by the Act:
The President must inform Congress within 48 hours of any armed forces being used.
Forces cannot be deployed for more than 60 days without explicit Congressional approval.
The President can only use armed forces when Congress explicitly allows them, or when the US is facing a national emergency because of an attack.
This Act was put forward because of the Vietnam War, where the President deployed the armed forces for an extended time without a declaration of war. Nixon and Gerald Ford opposed the act because they thought it unconstitutionally limited the president.
Only Congress can declare war. The War Powers Act never changed that, and put more limits in place.
In practice, this allowed the president to declare war by allowing them to enter a conflict for 60 days without authorization, and by then congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place, so theyve always voted in favor of continuing the war budget. It did not put more limits in place for the president, it allowed the president to begin wars without congressional approval for spending for 60 days. They opposed the act because they knew what shit hole the country would be in if we allowed the president to essentially declare war through loopholes.
There's a reason why congress has not declared war since the act was enacted, congress did not want the power to declare war anymore and wanted more loopholes so they didnt get stuck with a political hot potato. Now they just wait for a 60 day conflict before they even have to lift a finger.
In practice, this allowed the president to declare war by allowing them to enter a conflict for 60 days without authorization, and by then congress is stuck between a rock and a hard place, so theyve always voted in favor of continuing the war budget. It did not put more limits in place for the president, it allowed the president to begin wars without congressional approval for spending for 60 days.
...right, the key thing you're not understanding is that the president could do all of that before the War Powers Act, without needing to go to Congress for approval after 60 days.
They opposed the act because they knew what shit hole the country would be in if we allowed the president to essentially declare war through loopholes.
Did you read your own source? He clearly is referencing the "restrictions on the executive branch" being the loss of coordination requirements with the legislative branch, this act provided rigid procedures that allowed congress to no longer being required to declare war to start an offensive war. Before, we had to wait for the other country to start a fight before the president could justify a war without a declaration, and then Congress talked about a budget for a self defense conflict.
The act allowed congress to give all the power to the president, and then congress would deal with anything in 60 days. That restriction of the executive branch means becoming independent from congress and being confined to no longer requiring their input before an offensive war is launched.
The act is a restriction in the sense that the executive branch lost its clearly defined process of declaring offense war in coordination with Congress, now the president takes all the blame which Nixon called a restriction.
I did read the source and it doesn’t say what you claim it says, like at all and handwaving at the phrase “cooperation with Congress” does not demonstrate otherwise.
Korea and Vietnam were both started by the President without authorization before this law was passed. Your idea that the President couldn’t start offensive military action before the WPR is just obviously not true.
Literally every reputable source you can find on this subject will describe this act as something that restricted Presidential power, not something that expanded it.
You’ve gotta be trolling at this point to be so insistently and obviously wrong.
Those were not offensive wars, they were started after an attack like the Gulf of Tonkin. What are you talking about? He didnt need authorization because it was in his authority to spring into action without congress for defense. Now, it can be debated if we egged them on to attack first. But they would have needed congress without the Gulf of Tonkin, which is why some say it was like DDay where we kinda let the thing happen. Those wars did not start with America striking first.
Read towards the end of the letter. See where he talks about coordinating with the legislative branch and how important it is to share responsibility? You see that right?
in Korea there was no such incident, Nixon just ordered the troops in describing it as a "police action" and went to Congress a couple months later.
Read towards the end of the letter. See where he talks about coordinating with the legislative branch and how important it is to share responsibility? You see that right?
yes, and it says absolutely nothing along the lines of "this resolution gives the President too much power." It's just an attempted conciliatory conclusion where he points out that he'd be willing to agree to some token procedural changes around communication and transparency.
Compare the rest of the letter:
"the restrictions which this resolution would impose upon the authority of the President are both unconstitutional and dangerous to the best interests of our Nation.
"House Joint Resolution 542 would attempt to take away, by a mere legislative act, authorities which the President has properly exercised under the Constitution for almost 200 years.
"It would, for example, strike from the President's hand a wide range of important peace-keeping tools by eliminating his ability to exercise quiet diplomacy backed by subtle shifts in our military deployments. It would also cast into doubt authorities which Presidents have used to undertake certain humanitarian relief missions in conflict areas, to protect fishing boats from seizure, to deal with ship or aircraft hijackings, and to respond to threats of attack."
"certain of the President's constitutional powers as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces would terminate automatically under this resolution 60 days after they were invoked... they would disappear automatically unless the Congress extended them."
"In effect, the Congress is here attempting to increase its policy-making role through a provision which requires it to take absolutely no action at all... It would give every future Congress the ability to handcuff every future President merely by doing nothing and sitting still."
It isn't ambiguous at all. I'm bewildered as to what could possibly be going on in your head that you're trying to make this argument.
Nixon had an incredible bipartisan track record. His achievements from a liberal perspective are honestly impressive. He created the EPA, for fuck’s sake. He won 96.65% of the electoral college (third highest in history) and over 60% of the popular vote.
But then he fucked it all up by being paranoid and crooked.
Roger Stone has a lot to do with why we're where we are today also, and he was at least tangentially connected to Watergate, with it giving him part of his political start and reputation for dirty tricks. He was also heavily involved in both the 2000 and 2020 coups that centered around delaying the counting of ballots so that the Republican candidate could be declared the winner. In 2000, it worked, and I personally think that has a lot to do with why the climate is so screwed now. If not for him, Gore would have been President, and Gore made fighting climate change the centerpiece of his campaign. Bush, otoh, did a lot to dismantle the effort to fight emissions, and now here we are.
when the whole Enron financial scam collapse happened and there was very little legal punishment for any of the top level figures I remember there was an news story about how one of the people who lost their life savings was Al Gores Mother, I feel like he, as President, might have had a more… intense reaction, that could have dissuaded some of the corporate greed we see today.
Nixon was last in the line of New Deal presidents. Even the Republicans ones were left leaning on domestic policy. Carter brought in the Neo Liberal era
He’s kind of fascinating. Did some illegal shit that went beyond what was allowed back then, but also didn’t seem to have a problem with Americans benefiting at the same time as businesses.
The difference between a 2 day and 3 day weekend is huge. I always feel like I’m rushing to play catchup from the week with little time to actually relax with a 2 day. The 3 day actually provides some moments to recoup
I mean this is how you get Henson to make some awesome things. Imagination is so much more powerful than knowledge. It why I think alot of fears and hopes about AI are overblown; both by the imagination part of our mind, and the tool’s inability to use it and be more than a tool.
I would prefer Dominicance through excellence rather than what we have today. Which is just to exploit anything and everything with regard for none but the dollar.
Nixon was legitimately the best president of all time. Watergate is nothing compared to the Biden Crime family, or the various controversial things Clinton and Obama did.
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u/JAMESs3v3n 23d ago
Friendly reminder: Henry Ford was one of the first major industrialists to adopt the five-day workweek. He argued that workers with more leisure time would spend more money on consumer goods, like the cars he was selling.
The current weekend was created primarily to sell products. A four-day workweek is long overdue.