Is it all just EGO, "Team" and Tribe?

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by thepainterdoug (here)
Wow, I got a rude awakening this morning. I told a woman friend of mine, who is all spiritual, actually had an NDE , that I wrote a new song about the life and passing of Brigitte Bardot.
Wow ! she completely chastised me, judged me me as a person of low and very questionable values sighting Bardot as an ugly, hateful and racist human being.

This is just for context. grapevine posted this short tribute on the Obituaries thread in December:

~~~

Brigitte Bardot
28 September 1934 - 28 December 2025

Brigitte Bardot, the iconic French actress and animal rights activist, has died at the age of 91 on December 28, 2025. She was known for her influential roles in films like "And God Created Woman" and her later dedication to animal welfare through the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.

~~~

... and this is her long and interesting Wiki page, containing details about her political and animal rights activism.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Bardot

(All I can say is that I find it pretty hard to disagree with her about many of the animal rights issues she felt very strongly about, some of which made her an avowed enemy of the European Jewish Congress. )

[Bill Ryan]

Bumping Doug's thread (with its acutely perceptive title) for further discussion.

One of the issues that seems to be raising its head is that those American voters who did support Donald Trump but now feel disappointed won't have anyone to support now, as they no longer feel they have a team. They won't be voting for the Democrats, and neither will be many of the independents who were impressed with that Trump was appearing to promise the American public.

I'm no US election analyst (at all!), but what I'd suspect is that many voters in the US midterms will just stay away and not vote at all, with no-one to support and no team to belong to.

What that leads to may simply be the Democrats sweeping the board, but with a very low turnout.

As many have pointed out, it might be the entire system that's failed the American public. (And, of course, that of the Canadians and many European countries as well.) But there may be no solution to that in sight. Interestingly, it might be the UK that is showing what can happen, with the wholesale abandonment of support for the traditional teams and the birth of completely new ones.

How are Avalon members, reading this, feeling this about the team they want to support, or always used to? (In whatever country they live? This is a genuine question, phrased in the form of the thread title, and is not intended to be pointed or critical of anyone in any way.)

[shaberon]

Well, for me, it is the opposite.

The last time I voted was in one of the Obama runs. I went for something at the state level that the Republicans were doing, and I simply voted against them in every office. I left the slot for President blank.

That is all I am going to do now, is vote against the Republicans, whether that gets me a chimpanzee or a lampshade does not matter.

I'm positive that if we did not have a Republican majority, this state of affairs would not be happening. So, it's really just a first line of defense: bury them. Then you can add "anything that smells like that", since many Democrats do the same thing anyway. That's what I'd like to kick out, is the Same Thing. But the Republican Party in particular just needs to be put in a display case, as an inert version of what makes you Stupid.

Again, with where I have moved, I find myself in a Republican district in the sense we have been gerrymandered along the lines that would have caused McCain to have won the presidency. This is one of the most Fascist moves known to man, and grounds for a revolution on the face of it.

I think many of us will be voting against Zionism and for impeachment, which is nearly unanimous among the younger generation, many of whom still being too young to vote. In time we may be able to repair this "no team" state of affairs, which is why I never participated much, all candidates simply suck. The newer, progressive candidate from my home district who has a much stronger stance, such as ending all support for Israel, lost the primary by about 48,000 - 46,500, which is extremely close for a new radical versus a multi-term incumbent.

[Chip]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)


Bumping Doug's thread (with its acutely perceptive title) for further discussion.

One of the issues that seems to be raising its head is that those American voters who did support Donald Trump but now feel disappointed won't have anyone to support now, as they no longer feel they have a team. They won't be voting for the Democrats, and neither will be many of the independents who were impressed with that Trump was appearing to promise the American public.

I'm no US election analyst (at all!), but what I'd suspect is that many voters in the US midterms will just stay away and not vote at all, with no-one to support and no team to belong to.

What that leads to may simply be the Democrats sweeping the board, but with a very low turnout.

As many have pointed out, it might be the entire system that's failed the American public. (And, of course, that of the Canadians and many European countries as well.) But there may be no solution to that in sight. Interestingly, it might be the UK that is showing what can happen, with the wholesale abandonment of support for the traditional teams and the birth of completely new ones.

How are Avalon members, reading this, feeling this about the team they want to support, or always used to? (In whatever country they live? This is a genuine question, phrased in the form of the thread title, and is not intended to be pointed or critical of anyone in any way.)

I agree with Bill here. This looks bigger than disappointment in Trump or rejection of Democrats. It looks like system failure. People are not just losing faith in one team. They are losing faith in the entire managed spectacle. Once that happens, low turnout is not surprising. It is what happens when people finally see they were never being meaningfully represented in the first place.

[Raskolnikov]

Always felt like the observer in this life, watching from a distance, trying to gauge my fellow man, how he interacted, what he or she held in high regard, what was deemed taboo, the reasons some became popular while others were all but shunned in social circles, and have to admit that I still come up short when trying to make heads or tails of it. None of it makes sense, especially in the political sphere. The important things like trust, loyalty, integrity, and the careful and thoughtful stewardship for the future of humanity and generations to come seem to have been abandoned for the baser instincts like self preservation and climbing the ladder of success, whatever that means.

I voted once in my life and immediately felt foolish for having done so. I couldn’t put it into words at the time but today I see my instincts were correct. I never cared much for team sports, I saw it for what it was, a distraction - bread and circuses. And I saw what arrogant pricks so many of the popular jocks became in high school and saw the same playing out on TV in the political and social worlds. I remember hearing Trump on the Howard Stern show in the 90’s and thinking, “What an arrogant prick.” He was so full of himself I had to change the station. It boils down to entertainment, like a football game, and like a football game it brings us to the point of wanting to kill each other when our team is losing. Lately I’ve been pondering what would happen if we turned off all our devices and just lived our lives, simply walked away.

As far as teams go, I think you nailed it Bill when you said:

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Interestingly, it might be the UK that is showing what can happen, with the wholesale abandonment of support for the traditional teams and the birth of completely new ones.

America needs to abandon support for the traditional dichotomy of the red and blue and give birth to a unifying white, the middle way, if you will, a more human way, team humanity. There’s so much more I want to say on the subject but I’ll leave it there.

[Chip]

America needs to abandon support for the traditional dichotomy of the red and blue and give birth to a unifying white, the middle way, if you will, a more human way, team humanity. There’s so much more I want to say on the subject but I’ll leave it there.

I feel this too.

I’ve always felt more like an observer watching the show than someone cheering for a side. Politics especially has become team sport for grown adults. Pick your color, hate the other side, call it virtue, and meanwhile the things that actually matter — trust, loyalty, integrity, and real concern for the future — get left in the dust.

So yes, I agree with Bill. Maybe the old teams need to collapse under the weight of their own failure so something more human can emerge from the middle.

Not red. Not blue. Team humanity.

[Raskolnikov]

Posted by Chip (here)

America needs to abandon support for the traditional dichotomy of the red and blue and give birth to a unifying white, the middle way, if you will, a more human way, team humanity. There’s so much more I want to say on the subject but I’ll leave it there.

I feel this too.

I’ve always felt more like an observer watching the show than someone cheering for a side. Politics especially has become team sport for grown adults. Pick your color, hate the other side, call it virtue, and meanwhile the things that actually matter — trust, loyalty, integrity, and real concern for the future — get left in the dust.

So yes, I agree with Bill. Maybe the old teams need to collapse under the weight of their own failure so something more human can emerge from the middle.

Not red. Not blue. Team humanity.

Thanks Chip, I've really been enjoying your posts lately.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)


Bumping Doug's thread (with its acutely perceptive title) for further discussion.

One of the issues that seems to be raising its head is that those American voters who did support Donald Trump but now feel disappointed won't have anyone to support now, as they no longer feel they have a team. They won't be voting for the Democrats, and neither will be many of the independents who were impressed with that Trump was appearing to promise the American public.

I'm no US election analyst (at all!), but what I'd suspect is that many voters in the US midterms will just stay away and not vote at all, with no-one to support and no team to belong to.

What that leads to may simply be the Democrats sweeping the board, but with a very low turnout.

As many have pointed out, it might be the entire system that's failed the American public. (And, of course, that of the Canadians and many European countries as well.) But there may be no solution to that in sight. Interestingly, it might be the UK that is showing what can happen, with the wholesale abandonment of support for the traditional teams and the birth of completely new ones.

How are Avalon members, reading this, feeling this about the team they want to support, or always used to? (In whatever country they live? This is a genuine question, phrased in the form of the thread title, and is not intended to be pointed or critical of anyone in any way.)

And rebumping this one. Sorry Bill and painterdoug, sometimes I get all big picture and don't realize I'm steering the thread in a different direction. It's an important question that I think many of us are pondering at the moment so