Trump as tragicomedy

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Maddy
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Maddy » Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:17 pm

Seems to me this is nothing more than what we lived with throughout the Bush, Clinton, and Obama presidencies. I see absolutely nothing new and different from Trump in the areas of civil liberties and foreign policy.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:32 am

Maddy wrote:Seems to me this is nothing more than what we lived with throughout the Bush, Clinton, and Obama presidencies. I see absolutely nothing new and different from Trump in the areas of civil liberties and foreign policy.
I think reasonable people could disagree whether Trump is "nothing more than" those folks or perhaps a few shades worse due to his threats and demeanor, but I'll fully admit that I waffle between those two opinions. I'm by no means a Trump alarmist in the context of him being grossly worse than the other war-mongers before him from an actual policy standpoint (so far in terms of actual actions rather than rhetoric). But considering how bad Clinton/Bush/Obama/Reagan/etc were, I'll be "alarmist" in the sense of mentioning that he's at least worse if not a few shades darker.

What I won't swallow are the parades of bullsh!t trying to claim that this guy is a threat to entrenched economic and war-profiteering interests, and that our biggest threat at this time is "the deep state's war with Trump." The deep state is a threat to the prosperity of the world. But Trump is not at odds with this power. He just has a different vision for how to use it... if you can call his blathering nonsense "vision."

I can't point out strong enough that I have almost zero good things to say about Clinton and would be verbally slaughtering self-ascribed "liberals" right now for sitting on their hands while she commits war crimes and builds cement around secretive and murderous power structures. I'm a bit embarrassed that I didn't get "woke" on foreign policy until 2015-ish. But now the gloves are off for me. The anti-war left is all but a shadow of its former self, and needs to be woken up within liberals so they focus less on trans rights within the military, and more on the right of the military to do what it does.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:37 am

Simonjester wrote:
moda0306 wrote:giving generals more control in our wars,
that one i tend to agree with, the need to go to war is as questionable as it always has been, but the idea politicians can run wars based on political decisions should have gone the way of the dodo after Korea and Vietnam, and yet here we are all these years later watching bush (Afghanistan Iraq ) Obama (Afghanistan Iraq Arab spring Syria etc) making the same mistake, i don't want the US to be "world police man" or the MIC to be getting us into wars... but if you did or do have to fight letting the guys that know how to fight be in charge of the fight, is the way to win and be done with it.. the politically run quagmire war is an invention of the military industrial complex a giant cash machine for them, and nothing more..
The "Total War" alternative can often seem like a better alternative to the "perma sorta-war" we seem to fight, but to me considering the threat (or lack thereof) the only moral solution is to back out. If some goat-herders in Afghanistan are a massive risk to the U.S. worthy of total war, then let's just nuke the whole world now and get it over with...

Kidding of course, but "giving the generals more power" is just playing within establishment goal posts to commit more heinous murders while still accomplishing nothing, or "accomplishing" Imperial aims that weren't even morally sound to begin with.

There is no "win and be done with it" with occupational colonialism. You either kill all of them (perhaps that's what you meant by "win and be done with it"), or accept you're going to constantly be sending teenagers to kill babies in perpetuity.

The conditions that justify total war are very, very limited. The conditions that justify removing someone of life or liberty without due process are also very limited. We should end all of that now. Defend our homeland. Nothing more.
Simonjester wrote: i agree, but i think i am looking at the flip side of it, the all in war is the only type of war we should fight, and since it is seldom to never called for we should be using that fact to stay the hell out of the messy perma wars/politically run wars we are getting our selfs into. i am in full agreement that our colonialism is a failure and a bad idea to start with. having a worlds strongest military is a sound defense, the tough part is keeping it a defense and not using it as an excuse to fight.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by farjean2 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 8:48 am

moda0306 wrote:Donald Trump is NOT Ron Paul. He's a war-monger police-statist who could care less for due-process, human rights, the 1st/4th Amendments, limited war-making powers, or limiting the scope of the nefarious powers of the CIA or the NSA (he thinks Snowden should be executed, remember?). He might disagree with how these powers are projected, but he doesn't disagree with using them. He's made this abundantly clear both before and after he was elected/inaugurated.
I heard Trump say in numerous speeches that it was time for the U.S.A. to stop being the policeman of the world. So I was hopeful that this might actually be part of the MAGA reformation but I was skeptical because, like you, I heard the exact opposite sentiments out of the other side of his mouth.

Now that he's the new sheriff in town, he obviously sees things differently if he ever really did.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:15 am

farjean2 wrote:
moda0306 wrote:Donald Trump is NOT Ron Paul. He's a war-monger police-statist who could care less for due-process, human rights, the 1st/4th Amendments, limited war-making powers, or limiting the scope of the nefarious powers of the CIA or the NSA (he thinks Snowden should be executed, remember?). He might disagree with how these powers are projected, but he doesn't disagree with using them. He's made this abundantly clear both before and after he was elected/inaugurated.
I heard Trump say in numerous speeches that it was time for the U.S.A. to stop being the policeman of the world. So I was hopeful that this might actually be part of the MAGA reformation but I was skeptical because, like you, I heard the exact opposite sentiments out of the other side of his mouth.

Now that he's the new sheriff in town, he obviously sees things differently if he ever really did.
He did say some critical things of U.S. foreign policy, but in other pre-election statements he was also very hawkish and aggressive, but even if we ignore the latter statements, all I can think of when I hear a politician discuss pulling back our military posture in the world is George W. Bush giving one of the most cogent statements of his life in a debate against Al Gore to just that effect. It's one of the oddest things to see. Not only does he advocate for limiting the government's "world policing" power, but he does so with an un-bumbled articulation that sounded like Rand Paul.

I guess that's neither here nor there, other than to say that when I DID hear Trump make those kinds of statements, I never believed him. He was an impulsive blob of contradictions. I don't hold it against some folks who did believe him. What I hold against folks is ignoring what his administration is actually doing.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Maddy » Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:51 am

moda0306 wrote: He was an impulsive blob of contradictions.
My own (entirely subjective and purely speculative) interpretation is that Trump came into office with virtually no understanding of the system or of the issues, and that he's had to rely upon a cast of characters with establishment ties to navigate his way through his first 12 months. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that prior to January 2017 Trump hadn't the slightest idea what was in the Constitution or why it mattered. Many of the contradictions, I suspect, are the result of a still-evolving understanding of the issues and of who's playing for what team.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 9:56 am

Maddy wrote:
moda0306 wrote: He was an impulsive blob of contradictions.
My own (entirely subjective and purely speculative) interpretation is that Trump came into office with virtually no understanding of the system or of the issues, and that he's had to rely upon a cast of characters with establishment ties to navigate his way through his first 12 months. Many of the contradictions, I suspect, are the result of a still-evolving understanding of the issues and of who's playing for what team.
I can totally get on board with this. I really think he has no idea what's going on. Though I don't know if we agree on whether he really cares to learn.

That lack of knowledge of the system can be a double edged sword... which is why I don't want to see him impeached, as I think Pence is a far-worse alternative. I think a weakened, bumbling President Trump is probably the best thing for this country in some ways. It'll force people to start asking questions about what their government is doing that they never would have been inclined to.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:17 pm

I saw a comment on unz.com this morning that seemed like a simple, good explanation for why the establishment doesn't like Trump:

"mass immigration is all about propping up the ponzi economy by increasing population and increasing consumer demand….
consumer demand is 70% or more of the economy…and the economy is a confidence-based construct…as long as consumer demand stays up, the economy stays up…and if the economy stays up, the CEOs and shareholders of the big corporations keep making millions and profits stay high, and if profits stay high, then the media keeps making money on ads bought by the big corporations…

that is why the establishment and esp. the media hate trump and the alt-right–we threaten immigration and thus we threaten the ponzi economy"

I can't say that I am an alt-right person, because I don't really know what that means, although I suspect I have some sympathy for some of their ideas such as the above. If alt-right means racist, then definitely I am not alt-right, because I love all people, and in fact am married to a wonderful woman of another race. However, just because I love all people, does not mean that I want all of them living in my country. I think they should stay in their own countries and build them into beautiful nations.

In short, no, Trump (sadly) does not appear to be threatening the military-industrial complex, but he has promised to threaten the immigrationistas who prop up the ponzi economy. I love that phrase "ponzi economy" because it rings so true.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Kriegsspiel » Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:46 pm

stuper1 wrote:I saw a comment on unz.com this morning that seemed like a simple, good explanation for why the establishment doesn't like Trump:

"mass immigration is all about propping up the ponzi economy by increasing population and increasing consumer demand….
consumer demand is 70% or more of the economy…and the economy is a confidence-based construct…as long as consumer demand stays up, the economy stays up…and if the economy stays up, the CEOs and shareholders of the big corporations keep making millions and profits stay high, and if profits stay high, then the media keeps making money on ads bought by the big corporations…

that is why the establishment and esp. the media hate trump and the alt-right–we threaten immigration and thus we threaten the ponzi economy"

I can't say that I am an alt-right person, because I don't really know what that means, although I suspect I have some sympathy for some of their ideas such as the above. If alt-right means racist, then definitely I am not alt-right, because I love all people, and in fact am married to a wonderful woman of another race. However, just because I love all people, does not mean that I want all of them living in my country. I think they should stay in their own countries and build them into beautiful nations.

In short, no, Trump (sadly) does not appear to be threatening the military-industrial complex, but he has promised to threaten the immigrationistas who prop up the ponzi economy. I love that phrase "ponzi economy" because it rings so true.
[devil's advocate]
Why would you want the ponzi scheme to stop? Aren't you a shareholder of the corporations, benefiting from higher profits? Don't you like the extra tax revenue that keeps the interstate highways going? Why do you hate cheap food and gasoline? Why would you want immigrants to stay in their own countries instead of paying taxes in America? Don't you own US Treasuries?
[/devil's advocate]
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:27 pm

Because I'm not motivated just by money. America is no longer a melting pot where immigrants are getting assimilated into a common American culture. It's now just a bunch of different races that barely know each other. A few people at the top are getting very rich, and elsewhere the middle class is shrinking, and the lower class is growing. I'm not against immigration at a reasonable pace (i.e., much slower than currently), so that assimilation can take place.

And, yes, I actually do hate cheap food and gasoline. I would rather pay extra for something healthy to eat. And I suspect that the price of gasoline would be quite a lot higher if all of the externalities were priced in.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Mountaineer » Fri Dec 15, 2017 2:29 pm

It could be worse if Jerry Brown were the President. But, perhaps the 400,000 looking for work will enable the ponzi scheme to continue elsewhere. Who knows, maybe those food workers will build the next moon mission equipment. ;)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsal ... 2bda43b9ed
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Sat Dec 16, 2017 10:05 am

Mountaineer wrote:It could be worse if Jerry Brown were the President. But, perhaps the 400,000 looking for work will enable the ponzi scheme to continue elsewhere. Who knows, maybe those food workers will build the next moon mission equipment. ;)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsal ... 2bda43b9ed
Yeah what a disaster. Their unemployment rate is almost as high as West Virginia! ;)

I kid. Love that state.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Mountaineer » Sat Dec 16, 2017 11:17 am

moda0306 wrote:
Mountaineer wrote:It could be worse if Jerry Brown were the President. But, perhaps the 400,000 looking for work will enable the ponzi scheme to continue elsewhere. Who knows, maybe those food workers will build the next moon mission equipment. ;)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelsal ... 2bda43b9ed
Yeah what a disaster. Their unemployment rate is almost as high as West Virginia! ;)

I kid. Love that state.
Moda, you cute kid!

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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by dualstow » Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:23 am

Maybe it's just Jeff Sessions whom I hate. Especially this morning.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Thu Jan 04, 2018 11:49 am

dualstow wrote:Maybe it's just Jeff Sessions whom I hate. Especially this morning.
(IIPR in my vp)
Unless one's love of liberty starts and ends at the economic liberty of businesses and the wealthy, the appointment of Sessions alone should leave one at least mildly disgusted with this administration.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by ochotona » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:42 pm

"Trump Demands That Publisher Halt Release of Critical Book"

President Sociopath / Constitutional Ignoramus
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Thu Jan 04, 2018 12:45 pm

ochotona wrote:"Trump Demands That Publisher Halt Release of Critical Book"

President Sociopath / Constitutional Ignoramus
This is just a distraction so the establishment media doesn't notice him disassembling the Deep State. ::)
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Mr Vacuum » Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:55 pm

The “I resign/No you’re fired” bit keeps the comedy rolling (Bannon, Omarosa, surely more to come over the course of the administration).

Only to be outdone by the “Resign/I resign/Not accepted” bit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/04/us/p ... cgahn.html
The president fired Mr. Comey the following day.

A week later, The Times reported that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey in February to shut down the federal investigation into Michael T. Flynn, who at the time was the national security adviser. The following day, Mr. Rosenstein announced that he had appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel.

Once again, Mr. Trump erupted at Mr. Sessions upon hearing the news. In an Oval Office meeting, the president said the attorney general had been disloyal for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, and he told Mr. Sessions to resign.

Mr. Sessions sent his resignation letter to the president the following day. But Mr. Trump rejected it, sending it back with a handwritten note at the top.

“Not accepted,” the note said.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by WiseOne » Fri Jan 05, 2018 7:55 am

Kriegsspiel wrote:
stuper1 wrote:I saw a comment on unz.com this morning that seemed like a simple, good explanation for why the establishment doesn't like Trump:

"mass immigration is all about propping up the ponzi economy by increasing population and increasing consumer demand….
consumer demand is 70% or more of the economy…and the economy is a confidence-based construct…as long as consumer demand stays up, the economy stays up…and if the economy stays up, the CEOs and shareholders of the big corporations keep making millions and profits stay high, and if profits stay high, then the media keeps making money on ads bought by the big corporations…

that is why the establishment and esp. the media hate trump and the alt-right–we threaten immigration and thus we threaten the ponzi economy"

I can't say that I am an alt-right person, because I don't really know what that means, although I suspect I have some sympathy for some of their ideas such as the above. If alt-right means racist, then definitely I am not alt-right, because I love all people, and in fact am married to a wonderful woman of another race. However, just because I love all people, does not mean that I want all of them living in my country. I think they should stay in their own countries and build them into beautiful nations.

In short, no, Trump (sadly) does not appear to be threatening the military-industrial complex, but he has promised to threaten the immigrationistas who prop up the ponzi economy. I love that phrase "ponzi economy" because it rings so true.
[devil's advocate]
Why would you want the ponzi scheme to stop? Aren't you a shareholder of the corporations, benefiting from higher profits? Don't you like the extra tax revenue that keeps the interstate highways going? Why do you hate cheap food and gasoline? Why would you want immigrants to stay in their own countries instead of paying taxes in America? Don't you own US Treasuries?
[/devil's advocate]
Ponzi economy - love that phrase.

The ponzi scheme works for me, stuper1, and others at the federal and corporate pricing level. But, the mass immigration of unskilled, uneducated, non English speakers is a disaster at the state and local level where they use far more state services and benefits than they can possibly pay back in taxes. I also worry about the long term effects of building up the size of the lower class and proportionally reducing the sizes of the middle and upper classes. The shift is likely going to be very durable, because of the lack of assimilation. Like my dad used to say: "Too many people in the wagon and not enough pulling it."

Immigration at the skilled end of the scale, on the other hand, not only isn't a problem but probably needs to be expanded. About 3/4 of immigration is people gaining entry because they have family members in the U.S. That squeezes out opportunities for people who have something to contribute, and tends to potentiate immigration of groups that are already here in large numbers - which works against the melting pot and ethnic diversity. Restricting the family member loophole and instituting a points system so that immigration is based on value to the US economy & society seriously needs to happen.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by stuper1 » Fri Jan 05, 2018 8:39 am

WiseOne, I agree 100%.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by moda0306 » Fri Jan 05, 2018 10:34 am

Isn't all of the economy essentially the "ponzi economy?" People don't produce for production's sake. They "produce" for compensation from someone else's consumption. The consumer is either consuming basic needs items, or they're consuming something very discretionary and fleeting, making a "producer" wealthier in-doing-so.

So one could argue a Mexican day-laboror working on a farm to produce food for people is more of a part of the "real economy" than an engineer trying to figure out how to get a Ford Focus to have better performance or comfort traits. Obviously I'm cherry-picking these examples... just to prove a point... not that engineers<Mexicans or anything.

But in the end all production is eventually in the service of some form of consumption. If you think the consumption is largely superfluous and not adding to wealth & health of society, you'll have no argument here (I find consumerist temptations are often fleeting & prove to be of little value but for the quenching of the thirst that knowing the item existed created), but the people peddling those things (aka, "producers") are just-as-if-not-more-so part of that ponzi scheme than the consumer.

Even real "wealth" at a systemic level is often either simply naturally occuring OR is at the consumer level. No company, business, intellectual property, "hard work" in an employment setting, etc, etc would be value but for its ability to feed some sort of consumption activity. It's those consumer items being made up more of durable goods rather than the basic needs of life that adds to net wealth. Every other form of wealth (stock value, for instance) is some sort of present value set upon the future demand of consumers for the item that firm produces. Take away that ultimate consumption value, and the value of the means of production are gone.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Cortopassi » Fri Jan 05, 2018 2:57 pm

You gotta wonder one of these days his twitter posts will have to tick the top of the market.

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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by Mr Vacuum » Fri Jan 05, 2018 4:35 pm

The irony is global ex-US markets are outperforming over the referenced time frame.
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by ochotona » Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:47 pm

Mr Vacuum wrote:The irony is global ex-US markets are outperforming over the referenced time frame.
By a large margin... over the last year, by about 4.5% !
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Re: Trump as tragicomedy

Post by WiseOne » Sat Jan 06, 2018 8:41 am

I try to ignore Trump's tweets. It's like those TV shows where a character does something so painfully embarrassing you can hardly bear to watch.

Did any of you see the articles about a Yale psychiatrist trying to push the idea of of a diagnosable mental illness?

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-unravelin ... tal-770250

Given that some psychiatric diagnoses (the new version of bipolar disorder, ADHD, any Axis II disorder) can be applied to any human on the planet, and that probably most lawmakers could easily qualify for some Axis II disorders like narcissism, this is a pretty dangerous path to go down. Fortunately, some prominent psychiatrists have come out against this action as unprofessional and frankly a violation of medical ethics. Maybe, but mainly it looks to me like she's over-interpreting in a big way.
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