Mr.TaterSalad

This is purposeful and exactly what capitalism is about and what wealth and powerful capitalist actors and business executives want from society. The business establishment and wealthy business elite, the capitalists, want mindless people, who grab things off the shelves or put things in their online shopping cart without thing. They want you to feel emotionally connected to the products and services you buy so you will keep buying more of them, without a second thought. They want you to feel worthless without their products. They want you to envy your neighbor and everything they have so you will work just hard enough and get paid just enough money to go into debt and buy their products and services. The most important thing you can do in a capitalist society, according to a capitalist, is blindly and mindlessly consume. Under a Soviet-style or Maoist-style socialist system you see the immediate effects of bad public policy. Mao's Great Leap Forward is a perfect example of this. The immediate effects being tens-of-millions of people who die due to a famine and collectivization. You see the millions tortured, killed, or kept as political prisoners. In a capitalist society, you don't see the immediate effects of what the capitalist actors in the private sector and business class are trying to do to you, at least not always. In a capitalist society it is a slower trickle, death by a thousand cuts, instead of bleeding out the system all at once. You see it through the dumbing down and lowering standards of our education system. You see it through trying to turn public education into a money making, for profit, privately controlled industry like the DeVos family is doing with charter schools. You see it through weakening regulations for workers rights that erode worker power, cut pay relative to the rate of inflation, and make people work longer hours for less. You see it through the erosion of workplace safety regulations and through the deregulation of business. You see it through a change in tax and fiscal policy that has caused the wealth gap to explode over a 50 year period and driven us towards banana republic status as a nation. Sometimes you do see the immediate, negative effects of capitalism on society. One, of many such examples, is the Triangle Shirtwaist factory Fire of 1911. An incident where capitalist business owners literally locked people inside their place of work, rejected common practice safety regulations, and allowed their workers to literally be burnt alive as a result of their purposeful malfeasance. You also saw this happen often in mine collapses and explosions, factory or construction accidents, airplane crashes and more. Alaska Airlines is a more modern example of this. They literally would have rather cut corners and saved a few bucks then to have proper maintenance and safety standards that could have saved the lives of 88 people. Only because of litigation and government regulation, which came to late for the 88 human beings who died when their plane crashed inverted into the Pacific ocean, did Alaska Airlines and the industry truly begin to change. 9/11 is another example of this. Locked cockpits and proper security check measures could have save thousands of lives and prevented one of the worst tragedies in American history. But once again, capitalist actors and executives in the airline industry opposed and did not want to spend the money on having secure, locked cockpits on their planes. Climate change is yet another great example of the slow drip, death by a thousand cuts mentality of capitalism. For years, energy and oil companies have known that climate change was real. They knew the cliff we were headed towards. Not only did they know, they actually tried to move in the other direction, cover up and/or manipulate the data to say in-fact that climate change was not real, even though all the evidence they had says it was. The tobacco industry is also a showcase in colossal capitalist failure. Cigarettes' aren't bad for you and they certainly don't cause cancer. In-fact, there are many positive health effects and attributes to smoking cigarettes. Just look at all the weight you'll lose.

I'm really trying to just chalk their recent play up to a small slump during the season. I don't want to panic. I don't want to say SOL. I want to give Dan Campbell and this coaching staff the benefit of the doubt to turn it around quickly on the fly here. I lean towards the negative and looking for the worst to happen, but don't want to do this here. The 49'ers had a mid-season slump a few weeks back and lost 3 games in a row during their mini slump. They righted the ship and are back on track to being the #2 team in the NFC. If it were only one side of the ball where we appeared to be struggling at or a particular position group, I'd feel better about turning things around quickly. When you look at the last four games from the Ravens through the Packers game on Thanksgiving, you see struggles on every side of the ball. Jared Goff has played great for the last almost two seasons/years now. He's playing in front of a great offensive line and has really solid weapons at his disposal in St. Brown, Montgomery, Gibbs, and LaPorta. He also has a solid OC and Coach backing him up with mostly, but not always, effective play calling. I have every confidence that if we do slow this regression and bounce right back, it will be because of Goff and this offense. I have none of the same confidence for this defense because of all three of injuries, personnel, and coaching. Their secondary is really hurting on the injury front and it is clear we don't have the depth to replace the loss of CJGJ and Mosley. But they are really lacking elsewhere in the starting personnel department, especially among their front line. This defensive line is terrible against the pass and gets no pressure against the QB. The talent along this defensive front is a real problem and the scheme they are asked to carry out from Aaron Glenn does them no favors. They brought back and paid both Charles Harris and the Okwara brothers and have got nothing out of them. They brought back John Comisky and not little out of him. They drafted Levi, Paschal, and Martin and have had next to no productivity from them. Their talent level up front is seriously lacking. They have no one who is a disrupter in their front 4 or 7 beside Hutch and maybe, against the run, McNeil. We are bottom 10 in total sacks with only 22 and bottom 10 in pressures and blitz rate. We average 2.1 sacks per game which is bottom 5 of the league. We haver 5.3 yard per play which is bottom 10 in the league. This defense is backed up by a coordinator in Arron Glenn, who unlike all the hyperbole and overly dramatic criticisms thrown at his offensive coaching counter part in Ben Johnson, deserves a lot of the criticisms he's getting. No, it wasn't Aaron Glenn's fault that Jared Goff turned the ball over 3 times in a game. Glenn's defense kept us in the Chicago game late and allowed that comeback to happen. Good on him and them for it. But let us not kid ourselves, this defense has had a number of really bad performances this year. Against the Seahawks, Ravens, Chargers, Bears for the first 3 quarters, and now Packers they looked subpar to downright terrible. They are getting dominated up front and putting no pressure on the opposing QBs. They are giving QBs 5/6/7 seconds with a clean pocket at times. And no secondary, not the best in the world, can be expected to hold coverage for that long. Regarding the secondary though, they aren't without blame either. Obviously, as aforementioned, injuries and lack of depth have played a major role in their struggles. But so has coaching. The secondary isn't making impactful plays. They aren't generating turnovers. Glenn continuously leaves Jerry Jacobs out on an island with no coverage help. He needs safety help out there otherwise he's going to be picked on and shredded all day. But when you can't rush the passer and generate pressure, no corner can be asked to hold coverage for an extended period like this. I'm really, truly not panicked, yet. I don't believe this is an SOL situation and that we will fall off a cliff. I am a bit concerned about Aaron Glenn and this defense's ability to correct what needs to be corrected.

Sure, but we're not trending in that direction right now and we could have used an upgrade in our secondary or defensive front but passed on doing so because we like what we have here apparently. I use the we like our team moniker because that's often what Holland did in the latter years of his tenure in Detroit and it feels like that's what we did at the trade deadline.

We like our team. If we didn't add anyone at the trade deadline, no reason to add someone now. We have the smartest guys in the room who are confident that we like our team.

How about Jack Campbell, is he available. We used a first round pick on him so it is time for Campbell to step up and make contributions to this defense..

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/gus-johnson-fox-ohio-state-world-famous/wcn0attifkxzxzrbywmxmpb6 I ended up reading about why Gus calls them world famous and it has something to do with Jesse Owens being from Ohio State and putting them on the map during the 1936 Olympics.

I don't really want to talk much about losing Harbaugh before the Big Ten Championship or CFB Playoffs. But if he does take an NFL job I'd still want Luke Fickell to replace him lol.

I was as excited and full of hope and optimism as anyone when Harbaugh first came to Michigan. Then after 5 years of no wins over Ohio State, multiple blowouts against the Buckeyes, a losing record to MSU, no conference championships, a terrible bowl record, no CFB playoff appearances, a seeming unwillingness or inability to develop his own QB, keeping Don Brown around for 3 years too long, etc. all chipped away at my faith in the man. When we lost that 2021 game to State I wanted Harbaugh fired after that loss in East Lansing. I was posting here, telling friends, calling into 97.1 begging for Michigan to fire what I thought was a bum of a head coach. I literally wanted him left off the team bus and forced to get his own ride home back to Ann Arbor. I wanted a press conference announcing his firing one week and the hiring of Luke Fickell the next. Turns out, I was wrong about Jim Harbaugh. He did indeed turn it around in a very meaningful and impactful way. He rebuilt this program into a powerhouse and is potential on his way to a third straight CFB playoff. Thank you for turning it around Jim and for proving me wrong.

The WORLD FAMOUS Ohio State Buckeyes. I didn't get Joel Klatt slobbering all over them either. We held the lead all day and both announcers acted like Ohio State was the superior team out there on the field.

Guess Ohio ain't so world famous anymore are they.

So glad both of our posts aged well. 🙂

Look at Urban's name . . .

Michigan's defense got a couple of big stops when it mattered most.

What a win!!!!!!

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! WHAT A PLAY TO END THE GAME!

Jesus lord

I would have went for it there.

Honestly, I'd go for it.

LOL COMMERCIAL

Johnson is out?????????????

Yeeeesh can't do that.

I'll take the 3 there but I'd have preferred 7.

LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CUT TO THE OUTSIDE!!! TOUCHDOWN MICHIGAN!