TRUMP is seriously dangerous

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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Mon May 23, 2016 11:04 am

Meh. The problem with our current media environment is the lack of original research; it's not hard to tell which hit pieces on Thiel that Mr. Naughton read prior to blasting out his assignment; indeed, they've all been posted here and one of them is his.

So it is strange to see the obviously intelligent author can't even keep his own shit straight for more than a paragraph -- for instance, Thiel's prognostications were a failure because "the internet has been captured" -- just look at how a lot of our latest billionaires have been created in the past decade and tell me if Naughton is obscuring the facts with an un-sourced & un-argued gloss. There's been a lot of guys in Silicon Valley "creating new worlds" and then "impacting and forcing change on the existing social and political order." That's why the auditions for head of state in 2016 are being primarily held on a platform called Facebook. That platform is 12 years old.

Colonizing mars is still a painted fantasy even for Lockheed Martin, but -- thanks pretty much entirely to silicon valley, again -- space travel is actually at the most feasible point in human history, thanks largely the unspoken beef between Elon Musk and Jeff "WaPo" Bezos. So Naughton changes the game to Mars Colonies -- which he couldn't even find a quote from Thiel about.

Naughton also never touches the third rail: democracy. He knows there's really nothing he can point to as a recent success that his readership won't spit out their tea laughing about, so he simply omits it.

"Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." That's just too much to talk about in a Guardian piece, even if they handed it to Pilger. Why does democracy keep giving birth to fascism? Is that a bug or a feature? And in light of the fact he's talking about Donald Trump, set to oppose Hillary Clinton, could Naughton even countenance an argument that democracy is working for Americans, on any level?

And why this piece now? Is it part of a weeklong media cycle of response pieces to Trump's assertion that Silicon Valley is a "tech bubble"?

The real value of the Trump campaign, just like Bernie's, is all the machinery it lays bare. There's no time for subtlety in a campaign cycle: soliders need to march, and march now.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby The Consul » Mon May 23, 2016 11:46 am

TRUMP: Women love me. I love women. I am Huuuge with women. The blacks, too. You’ll see. We will do very well with not just the blacks, but the browns. And gun owners. Nothing more American. I want guns for everyone. Basic right. Except for bad guys. Whackos, sick peope, they’re everywhere. Outside your door just waiting for you to leave your house. God help you if it is without your gun. But obviously there are some places we won’t want guns. Of course. Like the White House. All lives matter. I’m on it. I’ll tell you what’s sad. Abortion. I don’t think abortion, killing babies, is right. People should be punished, the girls, the doctors maybe, but not the guys. They’re just being guys. I’m a guy. A HUUUGE guy, if you know what I am saying. Made Dick Cheney feint. And I tell you, first day in office, Global Warming? Forget about it. It will be like nobody ever heard of it. Except the Chinese, who invented it. Speaking of the Chinese, they are going to be held accountable for all this hacking. I’m a negotiator. I make deals. Greatest dealmaker. Read my book. If they will stop inventing global warming, we will make Mexico buy the Chinese wall and move it to Texas. America, I’m gonna make it great again!

CLINTON: We are a people who know, understand and amplify the value of worthless things. You can’t tell a school teacher in Flagstaff who has to hold down two other part time jobs just to afford her cable bill that the taxes of billionaires need to be cut. Our enemies around the world know this: that I will come, I will see, and they will die. Except of course our enemies who are actually our secret friends and generous donors to our Foundation. And yes I think Wall St. has to be brought to heel. But I mean heal with an “a”. Some regulations serve a purpose for a certain time then you have to let the economy work to solve its own problems. They’ve paid the price because now everybody knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are heartless scumbags and we are now in the “so what” phase of reality, in which we are covered in blood sucking leeches down to our very souls. And that is why I am running for president and why I will get elected. They desperately need someone who will start out being hated at least ten times more than they are. So don’t worry, the Koch brothers won’t be writing my speeches. Neither will Jamie Dimon. He’ll be too busy running Chase and my Treasury Department. And so to those who seem befuddled and uncertain in these divisive times I can only tell you experience counts. And so do women!
" Morals is the butter for those who have no bread."
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby JackRiddler » Mon May 23, 2016 2:29 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Mon May 23, 2016 10:04 am wrote:Why does democracy keep giving birth to fascism? Is that a bug or a feature?


I would argue it is a feature of the combination of capitalism and democracy.

Here I mean not the capitalism as ideally imagined in whatever form but the kind that has actually existed and functioned over a long history in generally predictable ways (if you're willing to be called a Marxist or a Cassandra -- remembering of course that her problem was that she was right).

Some thoughts:

If it didn't have to deal with the form of democracy that matured along with it, this capitalism would already tend to something akin to fascism. Everyone would strive to be functional to accumulation and fit themselves into one of its ideal class formations: obedient drone-workers, elite warrior workers, sociopathic ("rational choice making") entrepreneurial wheeler-dealers, self-programming neoliberal professionals and bureaucrats, the handful of power-elite grand planners, and, for those excluded from the rewards system: completely pacified out-groups and underclass, prisoners and social cases who can be turned into profit. On the geographic-imperial peripheries that provide the raw materials and outlets for adventurous capital, the vast majority would function in various forms as disposable slaves.

Of course too many real humans don't fit or can't fit. Especially where they have democratic outlets and demand shares in the output. The system works best in the periods of growth and "prosperity," when enough of them can be bought off. But this system of political economy by its own dynamics and laws always tends to produce crises of accumulation. The lack of annual growth can't be tolerated. True that it is incredibly adaptive to its own crises, but the process is always messy.

In crises, the state itself sooner or later adopts tools akin to those of fascism, often administered by the most rational and dedicated liberals. At the same time some portion of the excluded and disaffected, who often are the more "traditional," more vaguely fearful, old-style patriarchal, and less creative if not outright stupid, will tend to choose reactionary movements susceptible to fascism.

The failures of reform or left or liberation or social democratic movements are key to clearing the path for popular fascisms/nativisms/whatever label you want to apply. Historically, many such movements achieve notable reforms (New Deal, civil rights, etc.), but never without producing reaction. More often, such movements are either crushed by a repression that at the same time favors the nativist or right-wing populisms; or they bureaucratize and adapt themselves into the more serious administrators of the capitalist crisis response, so that you get Weimar socialists or New Democrats or New Labour or SYRIZA administering the state brutality and austerity measures, discrediting liberalism and the left to those in the middle and bottom who are still screwed. The death of the left comes about as often through electoral wins as it does through losses.

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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon May 23, 2016 2:35 pm

NeonLX » Thu May 19, 2016 2:11 pm wrote:
82_28 » Thu May 19, 2016 11:56 am wrote:Speaking of Rmoney it is certainly interesting that he is now coming off as the sane person of note. How the worm turns.


Eep. I hadn't considered that. OMG.


No, 82, Romney's not suddenly coming off as the sane one, but being a failed candidate, he's an anchor the party dropped to try to keep the ship from being torn asunder in the storm, nothing more.

I, too, want to believe what Sounder wrote. I cannot see the super-delegates abandoning Clinton, though it's possible.

I believe we will see a four party candidacy.

Trump

Romney, (or whomever), et al, to draw votes from Trump, though some will instead go to Hillary.

Clinton

Bernie Sanders Party
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby 82_28 » Mon May 23, 2016 2:55 pm

That is exactly what I meant, iam! I should have prefaced with something or another to make it more clear. Compared to trump he comes off as someone sane whereas just a few years ago rmoney was the lunatic asshole. Tellin' all y'all it is nothing more than a double bind. I take no pleasure in saying that perception of shit has definitely been shifted this go around. The shift is what we are getting used to. It's cool to be a dick for some reason now.

Central casting. They're just letting it play out with zero chances of any kind of loss. It is being controlled by who knows who.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon May 23, 2016 3:08 pm

I know that Rex believes Bernie when he said he would throw over to the chosen candidate. I feel he may, however, if he does he will be despised by his supporters, many of whom are Democratic party members, who will feel abandoned and will probably vote for Stein rather than Clinton.

I like the sound of the Bernie Sanders Party, a name and party philosophy to carry forward.

We'll see. How much you want a bet we end up once again in the audience of the Supremes, but with the outcome a draw!

Hence, a military coup.

And so the long war began...
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby km artlu » Mon May 23, 2016 7:06 pm

Bravo, Consul.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby FourthBase » Tue May 24, 2016 6:26 am

Exposing Bill Clinton as a sexual predator and friend-of-Epstein, reintroducing the concept of political assassination into mainstream dialogue (Cruz dad, Vince Foster)...if he brings up Mena next month, will that prompt some board members to recalculate their displeasure with Trump?
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby RocketMan » Tue May 24, 2016 6:57 am

Alex Jones has been up in arms about Mena, Vince Foster and Bill Clinton's pussy hound ways for decades now and I'm not recalculating shit with him, why should I with Donald Trump? Their intellectual firepower seems to be in the same range as well.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby SonicG » Tue May 24, 2016 7:02 am

82_28 » Tue May 24, 2016 1:55 am wrote:That is exactly what I meant, iam! I should have prefaced with something or another to make it more clear. Compared to trump he comes off as someone sane whereas just a few years ago rmoney was the lunatic asshole. Tellin' all y'all it is nothing more than a double bind. I take no pleasure in saying that perception of shit has definitely been shifted this go around. The shift is what we are getting used to. It's cool to be a dick for some reason now.

Central casting. They're just letting it play out with zero chances of any kind of loss. It is being controlled by who knows who.


Interesting...I have noticed a prevalence of Hollywood movies featuring real dickheads...psycopaths really...Nightcrawler, that horrible jazz drummer movie...even the Coen's Bros folk singer...

Oh about "perception of shit", I believe it was Joey Shithead of DOA who said, "If people eat shit long enough, they develop a taste for it..."

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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby FourthBase » Tue May 24, 2016 7:12 am

RocketMan » 24 May 2016 05:57 wrote:Alex Jones has been up in arms about Mena, Vince Foster and Bill Clinton's pussy hound ways for decades now and I'm not recalculating shit with him, why should I with Donald Trump?


Because Alex Jones is a crackpot disc jockey with a niche audience whereas Donald Trump is a major presidential candidate who for the next 6 months will dictate the direction and focus of all political media, and because bringing up Mena would crack open a subterranean labyrinth of worm cans.

How would you ordinarily feel about a presidential candidate who says that the Iraq invasion was based on lies, that the Saudi links to 9/11 should be made public, and that the electoral system is rigged and for sale?
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby FourthBase » Tue May 24, 2016 7:17 am

p.s. Not merely a "pussy hound", but also a rape ghoul.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby RocketMan » Tue May 24, 2016 7:22 am

By "ordinarily" do you mean if said candidate were not a wildly narcissistic, opportunistic, misogynistic, über-rich, pampered, authoritarian, racist, proto-fascist self-promoter?

Alex Jones is working his way out of the fringe, which may not be unrelated to the success of the Orange One. In fact, Trump is a semi-regular guest on Alex Jones's show.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby FourthBase » Tue May 24, 2016 7:50 am

RocketMan » 24 May 2016 06:22 wrote:By "ordinarily" do you mean if said candidate were not a wildly narcissistic, opportunistic, misogynistic, über-rich, pampered, authoritarian, racist, proto-fascist self-promoter?


Yes.

Recalculation would also refer to going from 99% displeased to, say, 74%, etc.

Alex Jones is working his way out of the fringe, which may not be unrelated to the success of the Orange One. In fact, Trump is a semi-regular guest on Alex Jones's show.


Holy shit, really? Are there working links?

Guaranteed that Hillary/Bernie's oppo researchers will be dredging those interviews for negative ad gold. Howard Stern interviews. WWE cameos. And so on. But I imagine the Jones interviews will contain some especially toxic soundbites.
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Re: TRUMP is seriously dangerous

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue May 24, 2016 11:02 am

Been in this thread a few times before but ain't no harm, ain't no harm - but, Trigger Warning: awful dubstep

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