Paul Flynn
Everything you said here is also true of Bernie, though.
I detest Trump, but as I've said elsewhere, the Left has a lot to answer for in its constant pursuit, use of, and normalizing of authoritarianism. NOW they are starting to get nervous about a president who wields power without acknowledged Constitutional limits? Which is exactly what Obama has been doing for most of his term. Law is for the little man. Obama and Trump are above that kind of penurious mindset.
The other centrists/Trumpists are just saying, "hey now it's *our* turn for a little Constitutional over-reach." Who are we to deny them?
On a less snarky note, the protestors/rioters who threatened (and used) violence to shut down Trump in Chicago are playing right into his hands. He gets to point at them and say, "see?! This is why you need me!"
Arrrrgh. I DETEST that man.
Don't drink the koolaide man. Everything Obama has done has been reviewed by the court system and found Constitutional. Your overlords just don't want you to believe that's true because to do so takes away some of their power over you. So believe it if you must. If we elect another Republican, he'll just give more tax breaks to his buddies who funded his campaign. Or if it's Trump, he'll just give the tax breaks to himself and his family. Or sure, we'll get a token pittance too, otherwise he couldn't claim that he did it for us. But he and the rest of the 1% will laugh all the way to the bank.
Was trying to figure out a way to avoid the usual "No it isn't. Yes it is. No it isn't." exchange. Then Michael said what needed saying. I only have left to say, after the Bernie (or fill in the blank with candidate of your choice) Is No Different argument, that even Dubbya led us into complicity in war crimes through a process subject to the authority of the courts. I am truly sorry that the Republican Party (with its own wisdom and essential voice) has been hijacked by extremism over and over again, of late, to the point that it cannot manage to offer a candidate that can at least be said to be civilized. This is not snobbery or elitism. If our government proceeds on the basis of overt, gloves-off, explicitly cynical, ruthless domination, then there is no American Dream. All that remains is the nightmare our grandparents gave their lives to curtail. Trump went from Clown to phenom because he represents a complete departure, just as previous "Strong Men" have, from the humane responses that make us both uncertain/vulnerable and more human, rather than entirely predatory. In the current field of presidential candidates, he is alone in representing a New Order (actually very old) that always eventually finds Whatever It Takes (for me) To WIN acceptable.
https://www.facebook.com/bdwilliamscraig/posts/10154489343769188
I'm really busy right now. People will see sense and not elect somebody who is so obviously a con man and already positioning himself to take the country to war. If it gets really serious I'll do something later, go to a protest or something before it's too late...
https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.3c3yej222
History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump
It seems we’re entering another of those stupid seasons humans impose on themselves at fairly regular intervals. I am sketching out here…MEDIUM.COM
Comments
Paul Flynn Hmmm. Do we vote for the con-man, or the immensely corrupt, criminal and pathologically lying self-entitled Clinton?
Theresa Lang Corrupt, criminal, pathological lying and entitled are still describing the con-man...
Paul Flynn Mmmm, entitled? i'll buy that. Corrupt? Maybe - I think he's a crony-capitalist. Criminal? Nah. That's entirely Herself's area of expertise.
Brandon WilliamsCraig My point is to make clear what so many people on both sides of the proverbial aisle have concluded. We are not being offered two Business As Usual candidates, both of whom have their reprehensible sides. That narrative leads to Stone's predicted future. We are faced with choosing between a BAU politician and escalation to global hostilities and casualties well beyond anything the War For Terror now inflicts.
Roger Davenport I have concluded the opposite. Global conflict has escallated under this administration. I expect a world war under Clinton at this rate.
The administration failed with their participation in the Arab Spring, Honduran overthrow, Ukraine, Libya, Syria and a few others.
The ramping up of hostilities with Russia and China are also on their heads.
This administration can certainly point the finger at Bush for Afghanistan and Iraq - but their inept policy and rampant covert actions are far beyond that now.
Their continued support for a war mongering Saudi Arabia is a ridiculous hypocracy.
Trump is a big unknown. I won't defend his stupid. But to conclude that Clinton is somehow the safer choice would be to ignore reality.
Clinton is a war hawk, pure and simple.
Dave Alber Is war always something to avoid? Are clarity of boundaries and edges always to be devalued in favor of a lack of that clarity?
Brandon WilliamsCraig War as an easy-to-start, ever-present, ongoing tool of statecraft is unacceptable, and always has been for those societies imagining themselves "civilized". We must continue to imagine ourselves as civilized and then call each other to account by way of that image. I'm hoping Thomas Moore might add something here...
Brandon WilliamsCraig See also Hillman's "A Terrible Love of War"http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54001479
Get this from a library! A terrible love of war. [James Hillman] -- "War fosters an impossible collection of opposites: murder, soldierly comradeship, torture, religious conviction, the destruction of the earth, patriotism, annihilation, hope for immortal glory. ...
Brandon WilliamsCraig Clinton is a war hawk. Agreed. The Obama Administration failed in the areas Roger mentions. Agreed. And more. Russian and Chinese hostilities are a bit more complicated, but almost reducible to the ebb and flow of predictably taking the advantage when opportunity presents itself. Saudi support is comprehensible but not acceptable, even at a purely tactical level, and has to do with waiting too long for the right time to choose the Out with the fewest casualties and highest likelihood of long-term benefit.
Brandon WilliamsCraig The controlling agenda in the shadow-Business Behind Bush (encoded in the term "Bush", as though one could simply talk about the man) was minimized, and thereby allowed to succeed. Ideas like "I won't defend his stupid" reduce the global fraud to "bless his heart, he's just a dummy" without bringing forward the purpose of a dummy with the puppet master's claw up its butt and wrapped around the backbone. GWB is stupid, publicly, obviously, from way back, but voters aided and abetted the fraud. The BBB wasn't stupid, and the gleefully behind-the-scenes, gloves-off Trumpery for sale now isn't either. Talking about this as though he just can't control his impulses, is simply A Naughty Boy (but we do admire his Pluck), as though this show were not prerequisite to his full ownership, buys and sells again the lie that got us where we are. Prepare to be royally plucked, militarized globalization-style, unless we call it what it is and pull the glitz of the show to shreds, every time we see a glimmer of it, and without hesitation. We had a Clear Choice For The Actual American Dream candidate and we let him get ground up in the sausage factory.
Brandon WilliamsCraig Clinton is not Bernie, and is not safe, but the agenda for which she is the front woman continues the story that Civilization still applies, which is not only "safer" but is the myth on which everything humane hinges at the national and global level. She might still preside over a descent into world war, but she hasn't effectively made this her primary campaign promise. I am aware that this is hardly a high bar. It remains to be seen, this time around, if continuing the myth (both fiction and fact) of Civilization will lead to something like reform and more humane treatment between persons. That is the aegis carried by each Leader in peril of their soul. With Clinton, it is at least possible that the American Project will survive and be more a dream and less a nightmare.
Brandon WilliamsCraig Trump is a not a big unknown, as far as the man himself is even relevant. Neither is Trumpery, the agenda. It lifts its rapacious gaze to gleam across the footlights of the world stage, bares its fangs in a toothy grimace, gestures indolently toward victims from the past still disheveled and glazed of eye, and trumpets "You just can't wait to get royally Plucked!" [cue screaming fans...]
Paul Flynn I'd love to comment rigorously and intelligently, but I can't fathom which direction this conversational ship sails on this topsy-turvy sea of conspiracy theories, washed by the foams of Bush-Derangement Syndrome, and awash in anti-Trumpista demagoguery...
Brandon WilliamsCraig I'll just have to hope that what you would love, to comment rigorously and intelligently, wins out in the end, despite my florid prose, and yours. Indeed, our republic depends on people like us doing precisely that.
Brandon WilliamsCraig Do your refer to other commonly accepted (Wall Street Journal, Economist, New York Times, all major news syndicates with one exception) crimes like the War for Terror (false premise, profiteering throughout, multiplied terrorism by more than ten-fold) as conspiracy theories? Do you suggest that the "Bush" Agenda was/is not deranged? Can you honestly accuse me of demagoguery as I demand a reasoned critique of "Trump's" clearly presented platform? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagogue
A demagogue /ˈdɛməɡɒɡ/ (from Greek δημαγωγός, a popular leader, a leader of the mob, from δῆμος, people, populace, the commons + ἀγωγός leading, leader)[1] or rabble-rouser is a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the…
Michael Schaefer It's easy to respond intelligently. All that is required is the ability to be be truly objective and admit that both the left and the right could nominate anyone and that person would get 40% of the vote. But there is a clear difference between the two candidates. Trump accuses Hillary of being a liar. And yes, she has probably lied to us on Whitewater, Benghazi and her email server. But independent studies have shown that Trump lies once every five minutes whether he is speaking, texting, Twittering or communicating in any fashion whatsoever. One is a liar. The other is a pathological liar who is incapable of telling the truth. I'll take the liar over the psychologically deranged incessant liar.
https://www.texasobserver.org/east-texas-trump-voters-lansdale/
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
NY Times: U.S. Hate Crimes Surge 6%, Fueled by Attacks on Muslims
By ERIC LICHTBLAU NOV. 14, 2016
Attacks against Muslim Americans saw the biggest surge. There were 257 reports of assaults, attacks on mosques and other hate crimes against Muslims last year, a jump of about 67 percent over 2014. It was the highest total since 2001, when more than 480 attacks occurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Attacks against transgender people also sharply increased. Blacks were the most frequent victims of hate crimes based on race, while Jews were the most frequent victims based on religion, according to the F.B.I. data. But the increases in attacks on these groups were smaller than the rise in attacks against Muslims and transgender people.
* http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/fbi-hate-crimes-muslims.html
The New Yorker: HATE ON THE RISE AFTER TRUMP’S ELECTION
Racist graffiti inspired by the Presidential election. Hate crimes have spiked since Donald Trump’s victory.
By Alexis Okeowo, NOVEMBER 17, 2016
Since Donald Trump won the Presidential election, there has been a dramatic uptick in incidents of racist and xenophobic harassment across the country. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that there were four hundred and thirty-seven incidents of intimidation between the election, on November 8th, and November 14th, targeting blacks and other people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the L.G.B.T. community, and women. One woman in Colorado told the S.P.L.C. that her twelve-year-old daughter was approached by a boy who said, “Now that Trump is President, I’m going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find.” At a school in Washington State, students chanted “build a wall” in a cafeteria. In Texas, someone saw graffiti at work: “no more illegals 1-20-17,” a reference to Inauguration Day.
* http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/hate-on-the-rise-after-trumps-election
The Guardian: FBI reports hate crimes against Muslims surged by 67% in 2015
Claims of hate crimes possibly linked to Trump's election reported across the US
Mazin Sidahmed in New York Monday 14 November 2016 16.31 EST
Hate crimes against Muslims shot up in 2015, according to new statistics released by the FBI, a rise which experts say was fueled by acts of extremism abroad and anti-Muslim rhetoric in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. According to the FBI, the number of hate crimes against Muslims increased by 67% in 2015, compared with the year before. There were 257 incident of hate against Muslims in the US compared with 154 in 2014. Hate crimes overall grew by 6.8% to a total of 5,850 incidents throughout the year. While crimes targeting Muslims grew by the highest amount, incidents of hate against Jewish, black and LGBTQ people all increased last year as well.
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/fbi-anti-muslim-hate-crimes-rise-2015
NPR: Obama Win Sparks Rise In Hate Crimes, Violence
November 25, 2008 9:00 AM ET
Communities around the country have seen a spike in racial violence since the presidential election of Barack Obama. In the few weeks since Election Day, cross burnings, racist graffiti and other alleged hate crimes have been reported.
* http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97454237
