" … For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished — but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered — but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes — starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer" … Donald Trump
————–
IMO the speech was a statement of intent to halt "progress" as the "progressives" understand the word.
Today we have many, many people marching against Trumpismo across the world.
I am puzzled as to what the people in the streets think they will accomplish. Do they think that Trump will say in astonishment, "they don't love me" and resign? Did any of these people vote for him or for any Republican member of Congress? The answer is surely NO!
What leverage do they have? Do Scarlett Johansson and the aged Madonna have the force to move him? pl
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html
I doubt that anybody has thought through what they’re trying to accomplish with these protests. The “Trump Bad” hysteria lacks focus. I’m sure the protesting milieu will be manipulated for the objectives of groups that have nothing to offer them. If Trump does something protest-worthy, and there’s an excellent chance that he will, whoever protests will be discredited by the association of protest with this temper tantrum.
Speaking only about Saturday’s Womxn’s March: What they are doing is considered a social event. They will meet, greet and acquaint for later works. The organizing will take place over time in other locales and, as you know from your own experience, who you know works a lot better if you have some shared experience (personal history). My suspicion is the Community Organizer in Chief’s political machine will be able to put this to good use since he no longer has to carry the Arkansas dump truck.
Hi Pat,
My wife and son were at the local rally. I would have been there too but had to drop them off. Speaking personally, we are deeply unsettled by his lack of knowledge/experience and apparent unwillingness to prepare for the serious issues involved in governing.
russ
They would keep on repeating the same mistake, over and over…
Supporting the Party of the Lesser Evil is still voting for evil.
The Democratic Party should be buried. That is step one.
People gave their support, through multiple election cycles, no matter what, because “it is the lesser evil”. That is how we got here today, supporting evil.
The Democratic party today is supportive of warmongers, banksters and treating the American people like it is the enemy – massive spying programs.
The Podesta emails and DNC leaks made it clear that the DNC is corrupt and
anti-democracy.
Bury it.
Vote Green.
Just wait (you won’t have to wait long, that is for sure) the mantra that will be the chief outcome of today’s marches will be to take back the Congress in the fall
for the Democrats.
Good speech, probably well meaning, but the proof is still in the pudding, and time will tell….?
The short address was excellent. It restated his programme and made a great effort to appear inclusive. The stress laid on actions will stand his administration in good stead, I think, once tangible results are in sight.
As for the gilded artists, Randy Newman got them down pat a long time ago:
https://youtu.be/H3T2wq2tSR8
I believe it is called “Virtue Signalling.”
I watched some small web blog live streams from the streets of Washington yesterday and didn’t see a decent riot anywhere. A small cadre of “agitators” mixed into groups of disaster tourists and small time journos.
Want some more realistic “protestors?” Pick up a copy of “The Battle Of Algiers.”
Obamas Presidency and Hilary Clintons candidacy for President are the high tide mark for the “history as a linear progress towards a higher form of being” school as exemplified by Francis Fukuyama – the end of history man, Remember HRC’s assertion that she was going “forward”?
Evolution is often misunderstood as a linear process too. In reality species survive and prosper in a particular niche. When that niche disappears, so does the species. Political animals in Washington should ponder that. Feminism, globalism and neo liberalism have their own “use by” dates.
I think you have to realize Trump’s rude and antagonistic speech/tweets during the campaign and continuing post election raised the hackles on many. Thus the “Street Rage”. Trump’s verbalizations overshadowed his positions as he threw red meat to his avid supporters. For instance, I have talked with “average” Trump supporters and many do not seem aware of Trump’s stance on the MidEast, just “jobs”.
“B”‘s recent post in Moon Over Alabama I think is well stated regarding expectations for a trump presidency.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/01/the-not-hillary-president.html#more
We could ask the same questions of the Tea Party demonstrations a few years back. Marches by themselves do little, but they are not totally worthless in the long term, as we saw back then. The GOP took that energy and used it wisely.
Today’s marches will have absolutely no effect on Trump’s agenda nor the GOP’s agenda in the short term. But they can bring energy and cohesion to a political movement. The question is can the Democrats harness that energy like the GOP harnessed the Tea Party movement? Probably not, and it will likely fizzle out just as the Occupy Wall Street movement did.
Marches on the Mall has changed politics a few times in the past and may still do so again. The good news is nobody carried guns or used them. They expressed their opinions. I know, because I was there.
I wonder on many in these crowds of protesters could explain what they are trying to do beyond a few words before breaking into an incoherent tirade about some vague threat against them.
Complete and total nonsense that should soon peter out and go away while the MSM comes up with yet another idea to attack Trump for having the audacity to win the election.
Until a year or so ago the rationale behind these chimp outs was quite sound. The left’s long march through the institutions guaranteed a favourable response to their struggle sessions. Gutless Republicans sought approval from their enemies because at heart they basically accepted the substance of the progressive project – they just disagreed with the principle of revolutionary change. Hence the disgusting spectacle of rightwing pundits arguing sodomite marriage was ‘an inherently conservative project.’ Had they been allowed to continue uninterrupted, no doubt by 2030 we’d be hearing about how trannies are an “inherently conservative’ constituency. If you want to know what the Republican Party will espouse in 20 years time, look at the Democratic Party of today.
In fact structurally the Republican Party is a vital force of progress. They form the rearguard to the progressive project, ready to fight off evil reactionaries to the #CurrentYear.
Trump has un-muzzled those forces by giving them institutional expression. It will take awhile for the denizens of the blue bubble to realize no one on the right gives a good goddamn what they think, and that if Trump sets his mind to do something, the cult of victim-hood will be no refuge.
Colonel – Thanks, this should be an interesting thread.
What do they hope to accomplish? This is a two part answer for me. One is I think we are seeing the return of the Democratic Party to its more traditional role as a promoter of the middle/working classes. I think the Clinton, DNC types that took over the party in the 1990’s are going to have to lay low for a long while. Second, they hope to accomplish the same things the marchers did in the 60’s. Effective change that works for the people. The conservatives today are still fighting against the reforms of the 60’s so if this group is half that successful and conservatives are fighting against their potential reforms 60 years from now then I would think their efforts were worthwhile.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say Trump intends to halt progress as ‘progressives’ see it. The speech sounded to me as though it were the culmination of the takeover of government power by corporate institutions. When he talked about Washington flourishing and then looking at the cabinet selections I see no one but the largest corporate interests that could take over the reins of power he intends to snatch from Washington. Do people really think we’ll all be better off if the Jamie Dimon’s and Goldman Sachs of the world hold all this new power in addition to all the power they already possess?
I think the man is very dangerous and certainly misguided. I also think a lot of people who thought he was going to do anything to help their personal employment situations were seriously duped.
“I am puzzled as to what the people in the streets think they will accomplish.”
Sir,
They’re signaling their virtue to the rest of the world, their moral superiority. And in their minds they were brave, courageous even. I’m sure they’ll go home feeling very good about themselves, and their momentous act of defiance
I’m guessing, given the turnout, that pressure groups worked hard to bus people in. It’s a great opportunity to rile up your base, and lighten their pockets.
– Eliot
“What leverage do they have?” The “leverage” of embarrassing (if that’s the right word) a man who has on many occasions made it clear that he is personally vulnerable to some perhaps significant degree to evidence that his followers are less populous than he would wish and than he previously has stated they were or would be. Thus, most recently, the post-inauguration claim by Trump surrogates (and Trump himself? I’m not sure, haven’t been following things that closely) that his inauguration crowds were larger than the crowds Obama’s inauguration drew in 2008, when that is not the case.
You or I might say, who the heck cares? The man is the president, and that’s that. But Trump cares.
Leverage to move him from where he wants to be or where he is going to go? Of course not. But an opportunity to get under the skin of a man whose skin seems to be quite thin (e.g the SNL tweets) — you bet.
If you’re with me this far, ask me if I think this is all rather childish on both sides? Yes.
Speaking from a misty little emerald isle on the edge of the old world, I confess to being totally non-plussed by these protests and also by what I saw on tv yesterday in Wasnington; valdals careering around the city causing destruction and the police treating them with kid gloves?
These uber liberals around the US and even in Europe protesting the inauguration of a new President, lawfully elected under the Constitutional system of the US. That seems to me more indicative of fascism than anything I have heard from Trump.
I have many doubts about Donald Trump. He always seemed to me to be a vulgar narcissist, although I was impressed by him on election night after he was deemed to have won. I thought his comments were mature and even perhaps tinged with humility. I preferred him greatly to the psychopathic warmonger who was his opponent in the race to the White House, but I think it only proper to wait and see what he seeks to achieve, and what he actually achieves. In his favour to my mind, is that he has no professional political experience; we know what the majority of such creatures produce.
One thing I was happy to hear him say, and I say this as someone who is not a US citizen, is America first. I have read much newspaper and online condemnation of this in both my own national and international media and I just don’t get it. I expect my own nations leaders to put my country first; that’s why we elect them. Not that they do this anyway, but it is what we expect.
The one thing I say to friends, family and colleagues re Trump; we’ll just have to wait and see. And if he does even only some of what he promises, he will leave a positive legacy.
What is the current count? Is it 6 Goldman Sachs executives as high level appointees? I’d say that the march of “progress” continues unabated.
They will not change his mind on anything; but they will have him and the politicians in Washington on notice.
“IMO the speech was a statement of intent to halt “progress” as the “progressives” “.
perhaps a message to no-liberals, to end their dominance.
As BM has often opined, “when the elephants fight, the grass under the feet is demolished”. This is a fight between the robber baron oligarchs. There is only so much tax payer money and a small faction of the robber barons wants more of it. His Nato comments, as a business man, seems to want to secure more funding for the military industry at the expense of the EU social safety nets. He needs the backing of the MIC against the Scarlett Johansson and the aged Madonna.
Sir
The rhetoric in Trump’s speech that you excerpted in this post is spot on. That’s what he campaigned on and he reinforced that in his inaugural address as the 45th president. Now we will have to wait and see what he can accomplish. As one of those that voted for Trump I don’t expect any miracles considering the cesspool of our nation’s capital. As I said in the lead up to the election I will be satisfied if Trump can build a cooperative relationship with Russia and reduce the threat of MAD by being unnecessarially confrontational with Russia.
He’s going to have a lot of challenges as the establishment of both parties do not want a reduction in their gravy train. He’s given the establishment levers by nominating many of their compatriots. Wall St seems fairly well ensconced with a lock on all the key economic positions.How is Trump going to deal with the likes of yhe foreign policy Borg like McCain and his office wife? How’s he he going to deal with the intelligence apparatchiks whose whole raison d’etre is conflict? How’s he gonna deal with all those who have benefited so much from big government and the spoils it entails? The question that only time will make evident is if Trump will enforce his will in the context of his rhetoric. His ability to directly communicate with the people by-passing the biased media filter is a powerful tool.
As far as the marches I think it is a good thing as it signals opposition. The open question is can they be sustained in any meaningful way and will they be able to translate to real political debate.
The country has been divided for decades. Unfortunately this divide has coincided with the rise of identity politics. It’s no longer a clash of ideology or principles. Every one has self segmented into narrow identity groups and confirmation bias rules supreme. We’ll know a lot more as this year rolls forward.
Colonel,
I thought that this was a well-thought-out and very pointedly delivered declaration of war against the uni-party and the Borg. We will be watching Syria in the next few weeks. If the airdrops supplying the unicorns dry up, then President Trump really means what he says.
Ishmael Zechariah
They have no leverage. But they did inspire the rest of us. My SWMBO wanted to be there, but at 73 with a bad case of the flu, she decided to heed doctor’s orders. But she was with them in spirit. I hope Nancy K made it through safely.
Speaking of inspiration, the new President goes in front of the CIA and tells them: “Trust me, I’m like, a smart person.” That was articulate, persuasive and uplifting (snark). And then later: “I love honesty!” The man has no shame.
Off topic – Coalition destroyed 90 boats and three barges in the Tigris river containing Daesh terrorists trying to flee from east Mosul to the western side:
http://aranews.net/2017/01/coalition-airstrikes-destroy-isis-boats-fleeing-east-mosul/
mike
Semper Fidelis? Faithful to what? The Marine Corps? When the civil war starts remember this day. pl
I went to the Statehouse Rally in Montpelier, VT today to support my wife, daughter, and granddaughter. It was a big crowd of 15000 mostly fellow quirky Vermonters. Bernie Sanders gave a rousing speech. Yesterday I watched the Inauguration on TV and was moved by the ceremony, particularly the reading of the Beatitudes and Jackie Evancho singing the National Anthem.
Glad I did both and I don’t think one experience negates the other. Feelings aside it seems to me that details matter and if, for example, saving Social Security is one’s issue, then hammering at it repeatedly creates more leverage than vague ad hominem attacks .
Townie76
On notice for what? pl
The protesters don’t have any leverage. I believe the Womens March is a simply a demonstration of solidarity. I generally think that a protest should have a clear objective. For instance, the individuals attending Republican town halls to explain why they need to keep the ACA – I consider that a protest that might (but probably won’t) do some good.
Many women feel that important rights are at risk in the Trump administration – access to contraception, access to abortion. For many women, defunding Planned Parenthood will mean losing access to health care of any kind. (During my college years I never saw a doctor who didn’t work for Planned Parenthood. Couldn’t afford to.) I think this march is about women reminding themselves they have allies.
lars
“Marches on the Mall has changed politics a few times in the past.” When was that? pl
swordfish
You do know that the ACA is collapsing financially? pl
Dick T
You do know that trump is committed to leaving SS as it is? pl
Colonel –
Faithful to America. But that does not mean I have to believe the man’s bloviating.
A civil war? Why? Will his supporters start murdering people because they exercise their right to protest? If so, they will be criminals, not soldiers in a civil war.
Right on 100%
Many of these organizations should have their 501c3 exemptions yanked.
Trump’s self adulation speech in front of 400 or so CIA personal was rambling and WIERD!
Trump again demonstrated his fantasy world in his speech before 400 CIA personal– Rehashing his claim that the USA should have confiscated the Iraq oil fields which would not have allowed ISIS to move into Iraq. Does this Prez have any reality base regarding this world? How many military personnel over how many years would he think would be required and at what cost.
Pure ongoing delusion on Trump’s part.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/sep/09/should-US-have-kept-Iraq-oil/
I made this comment yesterday, but is an appropriate place to repeat it.
“The one thing I noticed was what he omitted. He spoke of how the wealth of the middle class was taken by the politicians in Washington and distributed to other countries. He laid no blame on the 1% or Wall Streeters for this transfer of wealth. I was left with the feeling that, in spite of his rhetoric, the rich are his constituency. His first act was to reverse a recent Obama FHA mortgage rate cut by executive order. What an odd way to start off his Presidency. It’s only day one. We’ll see how this shakes out.”
Other than that, I found it coherent and consistent with what he ran on. As Obama said, elections have consequences. At least it wasn’t a stream of consciousness ramble like many of his speeches, nor was it divisive. I did get the impression that he alone will dictate policy, not his cabinet or the Republican Congress. There’s either going to be fireworks or firings aplenty.
It’s a bid for salience. Like all marchers the hope is change. I tend to agree with the sage Ian Anderson on most of these events, it’s a case of “Now there’s revolution but they don’t know what they are fighting.”
That said it appears a muddled message is no barrier to achieving salience. Trump’s message is a dog’s breakfast of populist bromides. We must wait for his actions to speak.
I do know it. But I also know it does not have to happen. It was a complex piece of legislation that needed amendments, and that was impossible in the political climate. My own preference would be for single-payer, at least for the lower 90%. It will be interesting to see where Trump goes. My guess is that we’ll have 40 million people without health insurance again in a year, or with insurance that is no use to them (deductibles too high, etc.) I think access to health care should be treated as a human right, which I know is not what most people here believe. I am not holding my breath.
Yes, we should curl up in the fetal position and shiver with fear because of fear of the civli war that will fall on us for exercising our right to speak.
No, that is just what he said once.
John Minnerath,
Maybe you should show up there and ask them instead of generalizing about people you do not know.
Here’s POTUS Trump’s speech at CIA earlier:
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump CIA Headquarters Statement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMBqDN7-QLg
25% of American adults are on some kind of psychiatric medication. I’d be willing to bet most of these are “progressives”. IMO, think they need their dosages adjusted upwards. The projection, mania, delusions and hallucinations are simply out of control.
These people have no idea what they’re really protesting. As someone up-thread said, you get two sentences that might sound quasi-coherent having to do with world peace or social justice and then a lot of impassioned hostile gibberish. These are just people with deep unresolved personal issues.
How do you not include his statement about the “carnage” that is America? DO you believe that?
So they threw a mass tantrum.
Feel better?
So he has tweeted. I’m just in favor of reminders.
Gwi,
Ah, that old liberal saw of “I couldn’t control myself because I was SO MAD”. Lmbo. Your idiots in DC have no clue what they’re “protesting against”, just more tools controlled by the Borg puppet master.
Lars,
No, they just threw rocks, attacked police, and lit sh-t on fire.
Better for them that they didn’t have guns. The second wave of cops would have been shooting at a pile of hamburger after one of those useful idiots waved it around.
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. ”
“And now I have placed them in my cabinet.” (Missing line from Trump speech.)
“You do know that trump is committed to leaving SS as it is? pl ”
I think he has made it pretty clear that everything is negotiable. What I think you should expect is that we will see benefits cut as it will be the best deal he can make to “preserve SS”, rather than raise taxes on that small group which has become wealthy due to our policies.
Steve
Today we saw just how incompetent Hitler 2 is since he couldn’t even prevent women in pink hate hats from protesting. Even the minions of the alt-right were nowhere to be seen. Quite different than yesterday when, inspired by fifty or more members of Congress, numerous “celebrities” and the MSM the Democratic party and its operatives successfully engaged in organized efforts to prevent their fellow citizens from peaceably assembling – to watch a parade. To your question on what the left hopes to accomplish, I believe they are reinforcing their belief that they have rights and those who disagree with them have separate but equal rights. It’s the common tactic of the cultural marxists. As we saw yesterday, They were also quite celebratory in doing so:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/01/20/blockades_stun_grenades_and_anarchists_abound_at_trump_inauguration_protests.html
A couple of items going unreported but I think imporant. First regarding the photos of the crowds, besides the time of day, angle and of course rain, is the more important story that the senior government employee decided, without direction, that such an regardless of how unflattering the photo made the Republic or the head of its executive branch appear it was just the thing to send. I’m sure that will do wonders for American diplomacy and the National Park Service’s budget.
Second, reportedly there were some Canadians attempting to cross into the US at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. They told the Border Patrol Agent they were on their way to protest Donald Trump being inaugurated. “No you’re not” he reportedly said before sending them back to their own country. Which makes me wonder just how many foreign nationals on student or work visas were busy protesting the inauguration of our nation’s president and how long will it be before President Trump directs their visas to be revoked? We have no obligation to grant visas to foreigners that reject our constitution and our government. Just how long is the Trump administration is going to let that go on?
GCP,
Yeah cause when I think “traditional role of the middle class” I think of a bunch of over educated college kids with majors in “social justice” calling the police “fascist enforcers of a capitalist oligarchy” and marching over open borders for transgender illegal alien Muslims.
Do you ever DRAFT what you read? Do you actually believe it? Honest question.
Larry,
Ah the “well both sides are dumb, I’m above it all!” argument.
Let me know how many cars Trump supporters lit on fire yesterday, you sad little man.
Townie
Unwarranted_self_importance.txt right here
Longish but excellent article about how the Left always resorts to violence and then has that violence memory holed and sanctioned by the institutions it controls.
http://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/
Rd,
“There is only so much tax payer money…” Yes “He needs the backing of the MIC against the Scarlett Johansson and the aged Madonna.” Oh hell no. Let me quote that great Southerner’s famous reply to Scarlett: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” About Hollywood, its opinion or its special privileges. Trump needs to end the Hollywood tax cuts. Why does Hollywood deserve special tax breaks and while working America has special taxes – like the Obamacare health tax?
Colonel with all due respect I don’t see danger of a civil war rising from this kind of protests. That is, unless the Borg actively mobilizes MSM to invite people to come out for civil disobedience for whatever reason it may stick. That day may come, if Borg completely gives up on leashing and bringing in president DT. So far with yesterday’ speech and today at the CIA HQ , I think ,Borg didn’t like any of it.
Lars,
My, my, no one went out and stopped the people of the Democratic Party in exercising your right to peacably assemble? The Democrats and a laundry list of groups, #J20Resist, #InaugurateTheResistance, The Inaugural #Trump420, Occupy Innauguration, #Notmypresident, and a lot more, sure didn’t let their fellow citizens do the same yesterday. I guess some American’s have rights and the rest separate and very unequal rights. We can thank Obama for that.
IMO, Trump is just a nationalist populist, see his (Andrew jacksonian) theme of yesterday’s speech, I guess he is not world’s first recent, few as such, have or our coming up in europe and elsewhere in world, one of a recent few as such was Ahmadinejad of Iran.
Lars–no arrests no violence and a seriously SERIOUS group of people who do NOT like men who demean women, yank healthcare insurance away from families, mock the disabled, and are generally obnoxious frat boys with money.
Trump voters did not seem bothered by any of his horrible words or gestures and it was time to show that American men and women know that “trash is trash.” (As my very racist Southern mother would say.)
I marched in Santa Barbara…about 10,000 very committed and very diverse people who were just appalled by the crass man of little knowledge who is in the Oval Office. Monday, we all start calling our representatives.
Turcopolier….you do know that Ryan, Pence and most of the GOP House members do NOT want to leave either SS OR Medicare alone. Stay tuned…it’s gonna be a ride because they think they can win v. Trump.
What Trump thinks (or says from moment to moment) may be of less importance that what Pence has worked toward for years. He’s a crafty dodger.
LK
“… that his inauguration crowds were larger than the crowds Obama’s inauguration drew in 2008.” Trump said that when he spoke to the CIA today and it’s B.S. I was surprised how thin the crowds were at times on the limo ride to the White House.
The marching in the streets represents the frustration of the people that the political system has failed to address for dozens of years.
The old establishment wanted war with Russia. The new establishment wants war with China. It will take a while for things to work themselves out.
I think its Trump who gets under the media’s skin. He knows exactly how to press their buttons.
You need some insiders or your administration will be helpless. The truth of the matter is Trump faces powerful opponents, and Bernie Sanders style revolutionary socialism is a pipe dream. If Trump constructs a nationalist oligarchy over the next four years instead of the internationalist one we currently have, he’ll be doing well.
Btw, TPP got cancelled today, so that is one in the eye for the ‘Trump is a covert corporate stooge’ narrative.
oh and here is CNN’s interactive gigapixel of the event as its in progress
http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/
you can see the crowds grew significantly from earlier because tens of thousands were delayed getting in. So Spicer could very well be right.
Col.,
Trump certainly has a thin skin and will react to protests that make him look bad. But that’s all extremely predictable and unimportant.
What’s more important is how this government will function. I favor the theory of a absentee president and extremely powerful Vice President and cabinet secretaries (recall Kasich’s description of Trumps VP offer). Trump will be more of a wildcard and figurehead, sort of like a Bundespräsident.
I can’t recall an administration that worked in this way.
As for the marchers today, if they ever turn their feel good marching into targeted economic action — boycotts, etc. — they might have an effect. Those lefties earn and spend a lot more than the Trump voters, on average. Abwarten und Tee trinken.
Tidewater says to Turcopolier and All,
As I see it, Tyler knew something I didn’t know; but so does Nancy K. I’d like to hear more from her about how she sees things now, and what women are going to do in the next few years. And how it went.
I don’t pay a lot of attention to politics. Still, at my age, I can remember when women were not even allowed to attend UVA; and I knew older women who remembered when women were not allowed to vote in Virginia. In fact, I knew a wonderful lady from Lynchburg, Mrs. E.Otey Watson, whose proudest photograph was of her genteel mother, a suffragette, dressed quite properly in black, chaining herself to the White House fence.
Frankly, this would scare the hell out of me if that had happened in my family. A lot of historians don’t realize that in the larger Langhorne family there was a group of serious, if quiet, feminists. Several of these, including the impressive ‘Aunt Lizzie’ Lewis, went over to England to give their younger family member, Nanny Langhorne, (Lady Astor), advice and encouragement, in one important bi-election. Which she won. (I don’t think the definitive Lady Astor biography has been written.)
Just a glance at the endless statistics available: in the 2008 Presidential election 70.4 million women voted, versus 60.7 million men. And there is the potential for a possibly significent increase in that number, because, as I recall (from looking at it thirty minutes ago), less than 65 % of those eligible to vote actually voted. I think these figures are roughly right.
Now, getting back to UVA, I have been genuinely surprised to find out that this highly selective State U (88% of those accepted are in the top 10% of their class), women are in the majority of a part of the UVA that totals 23,732. Women are 54% and men are 46%. It seems to me that that ought to translate into power.
If women are in the educated majority and become truly energized–and one tweet by a demonstrator coming in said “Energy is electric”– what if ten per cent more women voters are added to electoral rolls and they actually vote. And they actually vote in a bloc. It would seem to me the political pros who monitor and number-crunch the power quotient would be paying close attention. This thing looks to me like some sort of Solidarity Movement.
You can guess what the issues are going to be from the signs. “My body/my choice/ my vote/my voice.”
Actually, I got interested in the signs. I think it is not easy to make a good sign. Or, for that matter to make a tweet that is le mot juste, whatever. I think Twitter is elegant as hell.
Signs I liked: “Keep your filthy laws off my silky drawers.”
And one with a nice painting of a cat: “Chin up. Fangs out.”
There was one I noticed, and more than once, which I suspect might yet prove to be a challenge that brings results: “Fight like a girl.”
I think women mean it. We are looking at a sea-change.
One thing that surprised me were the number of demonstrators who carried what looked like Starbucks coffee cups, because what I remember from the Vietnam years was that when demonstrators chained themselves together at the Pentagon or whereever, the Army offered them coffee. Soon they had to request a break, and the next stop was out of there, perhaps to the holding pen at the stadium. Then I saw all those WWI style tents conveniently along the edge of the Mall.
This takes me back. I wonder, was Nancy K. at the New Mobe? I wasn’t but I remember the wet T-shirt contest mentioned in a News Leader editorial by Ross McKenzie, which angrily dissed the “concubines.” They were pouring large buckets of bull’s blood over each other. I thought that was kind of interesting. But I was never into demonstrating.
I remember back during the Vietnam/hippie years when I took the Westhampton 16 out from downtown, for a rare trip back home to the West End. I didn’t have a car and was living on Linden Row for about eighty dollars a month, or maybe it was sixty, where many reporters have lived over the years while working on the T-D. Everybody was out, but I had been told by Essie May Hill, my mother’s cook, that I would have a good supper waiting for me. So I walked down Iris Lane in the evening from the bus stop to the house and found it mostly dark. I turned the lights on in the kitchen and found it all cleaned up not a thing in sight. This was disappointing. Then I saw a little note. From Essie May. “LOOK IN THE OVEN. THAT WHERE THE ACTION IS.”
I love the see the marches on the Mall. Only when you’ve lost your freedom of speech and found it again in this country you’d know how good it feels. And protesting the President for the policies that he is going to implement, which you don’t agree with, is an important civic duty.
The Borg media will not quit despite being so discredited after they backed so hard the losing Borg Queen. Below is a typical story of why Trump will get subsumed into canned GOP policies, but they end with something different for a change.
“Mr. Trump’s Inaugural Address reflected as much, and it highlighted the influence of the most prominent nationalists entering the West Wing this weekend, the senior advisers Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller. The new president not only outlined his brand of politics, but also sent a message to those who work in the building behind him.
“We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action,” Mr. Trump said. “The time for empty talk is over.”
Or as Ms. Conway put it, “When he says, ‘We’re going to build the wall,’ he means it, and when he says, ‘We’re going to renegotiate trade deals,’ he means it.”
“Second-guessing or undercutting or trying to change Donald Trump is a fool’s errand,” she added. “People who watched this campaign should have discovered that by now.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/inaugural-speech-dims-gop-hopes-for-a-more-conservative-trump-agenda.html
At some point Trump will have to take down the McCains of the GOP. This could get very contentious on matters of foreign policy as Trump builds a partnership with Putin and forces a more protectionist trade policy as well as in domestic policy in particular on matters relating to infrastructure spending.
Tulsi Gabbard is the future of the Democratic Party.
She will cooperate (as many of the Sanderistas will) on Trump’s Keynesian economic policies, on the reform of Obamacare, and she’s already been to Syria (probably as his envoy) to fight for a sane foreign policy.
So that’s two of the three Clintonista policies – neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism – that she’s agin. And the third – identity politics? Well, apparently she’s a woman, but she doesn’t make a great song and dance about it.
“One is I think we are seeing the return of the Democratic Party to its more traditional role as a promoter of the middle/working classes.”
Middle/working class? Looked more like college educated women to me.
I can’t imagine the women’s march being particularly inspiring to the non college educated white women who voted for Trump or the working class of the rust belt. More than solidarity, this march just looked like a way to assert moral superiority with the usual list of incoherent feminist demands.
I don’t understand why the Democrats haven’t had a public reckoning with their failure in the rust belt and a commission to investigate this headed by Bernie Sanders. This would have gone much further in recovering the working class voters that they lost than this identitarian and divisive women’s march that simply appealed to the same demographic whose politics were shoved down our throats by Hillary.
Les chiens aboient et la caravane passe.
Agree.
It’s actually more about themselves and self-satisfaction.
They are “word people”, always far from reality,leftist,LGBT,bohos,europeanists, russophobics and so.
The ” elites ” same as in USA.
7000 in paris and maybe 15000 all over France…..out 62 millions inhabitants…….that’s just nothing. Headed to dustbin of history.
Long time ago my our history professor in historic studies was Jacques Godechot who had wrote a book about ” Transatlantic Revolutions 1773-1802 “.
I wonder if the same course of action is on his way
mike & all
To me DJT’s visit to the CIA looked very special, especially after I saw an Editorial from a British media outlet called “Guardian” headlined his inauguration address: “The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s inauguration: a declaration of political war.” I’ld maybe call Trump’s inauguration address an announcement that the rule of the Borg ended.
Between all the jokes DJT cracked at the CIA I found a line that strikes me:
“And the reason you’re my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth.” (Cheering and applause from the audience)
Source: WH video from 53m18s: https://youtu.be/EWlm1sPAXOQ?t=53m18s
Now, I understand that much of what the CIA does today is of course secret. But from the past there is known that the CIA once upon a time had a quite close relationship with the media, known under phrases like “The Mighty Wurlitzer” or “Operation Mockingbird.” For those who don’t know, see eg:
Carl Bernstein: “The CIA and the media” http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php
Wikipedia: Operation Mockingbird https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
So, when Trump said, and the reason you’re my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media, it sounded to me like a call for help, help to protect the Presidency and defeat ISIS and the Borg and their media.
And, judging from what I saw, Trump’s call for help has been heard and well received at the CIA. See the introduction by Executive Director of the CIA Meroe Park at the beginning of the event.
Quote begin:
“Since our founding nearly seven decades ago, the CIA’s relationship with the President has been essential to our nation’s strength and security. And Mr. President, I can assure you that in the years ahead the CIA, along with the rest of the intelligence community, will do everything we can to provide you with the insights you need to protect our country, to advance American interests around the globe, and to carry out your duties as President.”
Quote end. Source: WH video linked above starting at about 37:53 min.
What do you think, can the CIA help Trump to win the running war between the media and the US President? I’ld bet the CIA can help.
As far as I know he has been pretty consistent about that….
Col Lang
Not according to Wendell Potter.
https://www.healthinsurance.org/blog/2015/11/16/is-obamacare-collapsing/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Potter
What do people marching think they’ll accomplish? Probably just to let our new president that we’re here. Hopefully, they’ll also be donating to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU and joining local Democratic Clubs or other groups.
Col Lang
Maybe not his team, so much. According to The Hill, “the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.” That’s not possible without taking a meat cleaver to Soc Sec and Medicare.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cuts
My husband and I were at the Raliegh March, 17,000 strong. It was focused and peaceful. Participants included probably 20 percent men, all ages and races. I don’t believe this movement is going away any time soon, but will grow in strength and determination.
Nancy K
What is the goal of “the movement?” pl
EA
Perhaps his concept is to reduce the federal work force by a great many people. pl
Bandolero
IMO you are correct. As the cognoscenti appreciate, CIA is best at Combat in Washington. If they crank up the Wurlitzer for him, using people like Ignatius and Harwood it will have an effect. pl
HCG
My favorite Arabic proverb. pl
All
I saw Madonna out there saying that she is thinking about blowing up the WH. Am I right in remembering that she gave up US citizenship to avoid paying income tax? pl
The relative crowds sizes for the 2009 and the 2017 inaugurations has become an issue.
I would laugh but perhaps I should be frightened of the photo comparison between Barack and Donald’s crowds.
People should be embarrassed to be reminded of Barack’s 2009 beatlemania. Kumbaya. The party hats were in fact dunce caps.
Who wants to see those 2009 photos?
Those 2009 photos should remind people of how the “most open administration ever” – a promise – would, in reality, turn out to be more secretive than even Bush’s. Where are the cheers for that?
Who is cheering about the protection from prosecution the banksters were given and the billions upon billions pumped into their games while the rest of the country deteriorated from neglect?
What say you, National Mall crowds?
The president drew huge cheers when he spoke of protecting our rights and instead would protect massive programs that spied upon his own People.
The 2009 beatlemania, kumbaya silliness vs a sorry reality.
A misdirected Hope for peace (even a Peace Prize!) was given to a person who would give us a coup in Ukraine, and blood soaked wars in Libya, Yemen, Syria…………….
The crowds on the National Mall cheered knowing those were coming?
What do the mall crowds see when they look back at their photos from 2009?
They should be reminded that they were all fooled, and, if instead the photos
elicit pride and satisfaction…
then that is really, really frightening.
EA, The nice thing about the internet is that you can always find a Kool-Aid stand serving your favorite flavor.
Warpig,
I do know many of them.
I’ll stand by what I wrote.
We are in for a wild ride. Trump’s speech was populist, no doubt about that. Was it sincere or a cover for a nefarious plan to loot and oppress?
He’s appointed some questionable figures for his economic policy, Mnuchin, Ross, Pruitt, Price, Cohn. Are these thieves meant to catch the thieves, or just to help the thievery?
The tell here will be the health care plan.
On foreign and military policy, you hope that Tillerson and Mattis have some common sense, but Tillerson’s idea to blockade in the South China Sea was worrying. Flynn may be a good guy, or he may be a nut. The affiliation with Ledeen is not a good sign.
The tell here will be Iran policy. Either they are going to stick to the deal and sell Boeing 737s to Iran, or they will move to regime change.
The Women’s March was a failure of concept, no matter how many showed up. It was a reaffirmation of identity politics. What will be needed is a broad-based movement for economic populism and freedom from state oppression. It would have been better to keep the power dry and call out the masses in response to Trump and Ryan doing something outrageous, be it cutting health insurance, instituting regressive taxes, or moving towards an attack on Iran.
Social Security is the Holy Grail to these Ayn Rand cultists and Wall Street lobbyists.
You have heard the years of propaganda against it. It will be insolvent, it is unsustainable. It’s all bullshit, but Wall Street wants the fees from a privatized system.
They already privatized the military retirement system!
We will see.
All,
I came right to make my comments. Forgive me if this has been covered.
The forever vulgar Madonna deserves a visit from Secret Service.
Is Ashley Judd having a breakdown?
Scarlet Johansen doesn’t give a damn about women in Palestine so she can take a seat.
Gloria “Kissinger Dating Black Woman Using ‘ Steinhem. Please.
Where were these women when Obama used drones to kill innocent women and children?
Where were they when HRC laughed about Libya? Did they miss those images of refugees drowning trying to escape?
Can I expect protests for lead poisoned children in Flint and other major cities in the US or do only certain pipelines matter?
I’ve read that provocateurs blocked the security entrances to the mall so that would account for fewer people being present rt o see Trump. Someone alert Spicer.
I’m glad there was no violence during the Women March events but it does say to me that the mayhem was stage managed. Project Veritas allegations were right before.
Ambrit,
Those protests were real. The DC mayhem was financed.
mike, kooshy and raven
1. I don’t care about which words he uses. They mean little. Let’s see what he does. So far, he has cancelled the TPP. Anything else of real significance? 2. “Carnage?” If you have a nice income or a university hide-out like the three of you then there is no “carnage.” On the other hand if you are an unemployed or semi-unemployed Deplorable the “carnage” is evident on every hand. 3. mike lives on the beach in prosperous Washington State. Kooshy lives in La La Land and Raven is probably some sort of academic person (student or faculty) around Athens Georgia. You fellows do not, IMO, understand the anguish of so many at the globalist philosophy that has deprived so many Americans of their livelihoods. Automation? We can do automation better here than in Mexico or anywhere else in the 3rd World if the game is not rigged in advance to send jobs and factories abroad using taxes and wages as tools. The Deplorables are well aware of the Democratic Party’s devotion to globalism. This awareness easily explains the presidential loss and the general devastation wrought upon the Democratic Party everywhere in the USA except in La La Land. You don’t seem to understand the depth of the anguish. If Nancy K’s “movement” were to succeed in bringing Trump down there would be IMO wide spread violence that would make yesterday’s marching around look silly. It does no good to describe people who might resist as “criminals.” The British called our ancestors that. 4. With regard to Trump himself, I am increasingly concerned that the man has something physical, and possibly neurological that is wrong with him. His inarticulate ham handed utterances, his reputed hyper-active behavior, his inability to focus long enough to read whole books or watch complete movies, his ridiculous statements about Iraqi oil up north, He does not seem to understand the geography of the ME. These things make me concerned that he may well be an ADHD case or something similar. His little son worries me. The boy does not seem to walk normally. Is Trump actually handicapped to some extent? pl
GZC
“They already privatized the military retirement system!” I had not noticed that. pl
Tidewater,
My favorite sign was held by an elderly women that read ‘I can’t believe I’m still protesting for shit”!
I blew up art print for a protest during the Clinton bombing of Serbia. It was The Scream by Edvard Munch
johnf,
I’m not sure about that. She supports the radical BJP party in India.
I like her but she needs to answer this one.
Col. Lang,
Whoa. Wasn’t aware of that.
Madonna meant bowing just like Monica Lewinsky…… No fuss intended….
You’re absolutely right
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38710697
Don’t see how the new American administration can help but find Mrs May’s comments impertinent. The German response was better, more to the point. Their crony politicians saw Trump’s inaugural speech as tantamount to a declaration of war. Good.
It’s a straight war between the cronies and the people. The cronies and the Neo-cons have managed to get the ‘progressives”, or the “left”, whatever that means nowadays, on side. That means that to a certain extent the devil has got all the best tunes – Women’s rights, anti-racism, the gender stuff. They cronies are playing those tunes for all they’re worth at present. If you look at Mrs Clinton’s campaign, for example, you’ll see those were about the only tunes she had.
That’s why so many are conflicted, as can be seen on the Colonel’s site here. It’s clear from this site that many who would be horrified to be associated with the Neo-con mayhem in foreign policy, or Beltway corruption, or failed economic policies, are for all that falling in resolutely behind the cronies because they must have those tunes.
Time to examine those tunes, cut out the bad bits and keep the good. I see it as ultimately a struggle with the Utopianism “Fred” has recently been examining on this site, but maybe that’s just my take. However it’s seen, it’s a job that has to be done. If it’s not seen ultimately as a moral conflict, and one in which the cronies and their “progressive” entourage are fakes, then the Trump movement will fade away into merely another Whiskey rebellion.
So I’m quite grateful to Mrs Merkel and the European politicians for their reaction. These aren’t just mini-Neocons howling with rage because the big dog’s found another game to play and it may not include them. They’re also showing us where the battleground is.
If you believe most of the 25 % are liberals do you also believe that the majority addicted to opioid are conservative. Most opioid abuse is in red states.
Yes. I don’t understand it fully, but a big part of it is a Federal Thrift Savings-type component with matching contributions.
There is still retired pay after 20 years, it is just reduced from current levels, to be made up by the TSP contributions.
It’s not totally a bad thing, it’s possible to get some benefits without putting the 20+ in.
There is the possibility for troops and sailors to screw themselves with low levels of contribution and taking lump sum payments and blowing it on Harley Davidsons, Camaros.
To be sure, there will be Wall Street management fees on the TSP part.
Blockade the South China Sea? Tillerson might want to look at the ring of bases and other U.S. installations we have that already ring the Chinese mainland. Who is doing What to Whom?
The Trump inaugural speech was a re-iteration of his statements during the campaign in a nice delivery. Time tells all and will for him. Our country needs him to do well as we are a twenty trillion debtor. So stand back and let the man clean up our mess.
In the spirit of the above Trump needs to issue an Executive Order that renders a $250 cost to every group seeking a permit for each individual that intends to protest against our government in place. The Washington Mall and surrounding areas belong to the people to enjoy not for organized entities to utilize for their political purposes. The filth needs to be cleaned up and policed and the American people should not need to pay.
I would really like to know the details of the privatization of the military pension system. Boy, if they could get away with the military, social security will be a walk in the park for Wall Street.
A bunch of upset upper class white women who didn’t get their way, led by a Muslim who thinks any mention of women’s treatment under is Islam is “Islamophobia”, and organized by the usual hydra’s heads of Communist front groups: the “women’s march” in a nutshell.
FYI “autistic screeching” is what it is called when you’re protesting things that never happened except in your own head.
Also, here’s a headline you never would have seen in a President Clinton admin: “TPP cancelled”. Already the Fifth Columnists here are trying desperately to handwave this away.
Nancy K, Sure. I know, personally, some fly-over country people that are abusing opioids. Their way of life was destroyed and, aside from Trump, they are without hope, and they are hated by the cultural elitists, like you. Just as Native Americans turned to the bottle when the Indian Wars ended and the reality of life on the res set in, they have turned to these drugs. Some individuals find a new way, but many are deeply steeped in a culture that has vanished and they are unable to self-determine a new direction without a functioning culture. It is a tragedy. Trump will ameliorate it. He said so in his inauguration and he’s been saying it all along. And if he fails, he will at least have punished the elitist assholes that caused the situation, which is not such a bad consolation prize.
All of which has no bearing on what I said about the leftist protesters – and leftist generally – being insane
Tidewater,
“Women are 54% and men are 46%. It seems to me that that ought to translate into power.”
Are you familiar with the noise about the wage gap? It’s the same issue, these graduates are choosing careers that are less competitive, demand fewer hours, and pay less.
Cheers,
Eliot
Colonel –
Please note that in my comment above I called him the President. He is “our” president, both yours and mine, whether I like him or not. Do not confuse me with the scumbags that for eight years claimed that President Obama was not and never would be their president. Or the many commenters during the election campaign on your otherwise fine blog that insinuated they might start a civil war if Mrs Clinton had won the election.
More importantly, why would anyone want to start a civil war over some ladies exercising their rights as Americans to protest?
And what about the women’s marches in Paris, Marseille, Toulouse & Bordeaux? Will President Trump lovers start up with the “freedom fries” nonsense again and ban French imports?
Plus London, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, Belfast & Edinburgh; Berlin & Barcelona; Sydney?
PS – Trump did not kill TPP, it was already dead-in-the-water.
PPS – It might be nice to live on the beach, but I like it better here close to the mudflats. Clamming, crabbing, and fishing from a flat-bottomed skiff is nicer by far than the roar of the surf.
Sir,
When I read about the protests on Inauguration Day I thought it was sad.
I have no problems with protests against policies. I think that protesting policies that one disagrees with is something that people should do.
I don’t draw any conclusions from the violent protests I saw because they were done by masked people who could have been agitators paid by anyone.
But on Inauguration Day, President Trump hasn’t implemented any policies yet. Yes, he made a pledge to do many things,
( https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102316-Contractv02.pdf )
but his statements in various interview seem often contradictory (ie, last week’s interview saying his healthcare plan would have universal coverage at lower costs, while the pledge said only Health Savings Accounts). So, I don’t think it’s clear what Mr Trump is going to do.
To protest Donald Trump on Inauguration Day seems to me to protest either the system that elected him (and there are worse alternatives than elections!), or to protest Donald Trump the man. To protest Trump the man, not Trump’s policies, means ‘it doesn’t matter what he does, I am against him’. I see that as painting oneself into a corner.
Donald Trump may (or may not) become a bad president, and he may do things that I really disagree with. So–in future–I may criticize his policies. But until the new president actually implements some bad policies, I think protesting the man is just counter-productive.
mike,
That’s funny. Where were the violent alt-right legions yesterday? How many Republican congressman organized anti-women protests? Yeah, zero. If Hilary had gotten off her ass, off the fund-raising trail and out into peoples’ homes this crowd would have showed up and voted in all those states that she lost. The only things she did effectively in that campaign were raise money and label Donald Trump as Hitler.
What we need now is a good de-Nazification program. From the complete lack of alt-right response to the pretty in pink cultural marxist march and the utter lack of, to use your words, “his supporters start murdering people because they exercise their right to protest.”, I’d say we’re off to a good start.
You’re very good at attacking people without directly responding to the points they make. Many of us tried to tell you Trump would turn out to be a disaster and he made it apparent that was going to be the case with that atrocious cabinet he appointed. Face it Tyler, you were chumped and now you have to live with it. This guy will turn out to be the biggest disappointment of your life.
I believe it much more than anything you write.
Nancy K –
Glad you are OK. Did not realize you were from Carolina, which is my favorite state after Maine and Washington of course. I spent many years in Coastal Carolina and would have retired there or in Tidewater Virginia, but property on the coast there was way above my means.
Tyler,
All the cultural marxist indoctrination techniques on display. On another note did you see the photo of America’s journalists in action?:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/01/20/searching-metaphor-reporters-flock-burning-dc-garbage-can/
ramona_q wrote: ‘I don’t understand why the Democrats haven’t had a public reckoning with their failure in the rust belt’
‘… their failure in the rust belt’? OK, what, precisely, would you do in the rust belt? Their jobs aren’t coming back as the $30 an hour with benefit jobs they had before. If they come back at all (which they won’t) they’ll come back as minimum wage with no benefits. The fact is they were conned by a good con man and now the country is going to suffer. Not only will they not get their jobs back but that cabinet group that was appointed is now going to go after their healthcare, try to privatize their pensions/SS and further insulate their corporate brethren from legal consequences of their behavior – for a start. It’s not the Democrats that need a public reckoning. It’s the oxycontin/meth (look up Bill Maher’s remarks on drug use in Trump states Friday night) fueled dupes who believed a bunch of Wall Street types were going to start paying them $30 an hour again to do jobs they can get done overseas for $2 an hour.
Green Zone Cafe wrote: ‘We are in for a wild ride. Trump’s speech was populist, no doubt about that. Was it sincere or a cover for a nefarious plan to loot and oppress?’
It’s the latter if you ask me.
I think, in every country with even a semblance of representative government, one has to pose the question to the electorate, from time to time:
“What is it that you want?”
“What are you willing to do to get it?”
Governments, in my opinion, are unwilling to be honest with the electorate all over the world.
That level of honesty will get you dis-elected very quickly.
And the electorate, almost without exception (save perhaps Switzerland), cannot “handle the Truth” – they will shrivel up if they see it. They prefer to live in their little personal cherished fantasies – with greed and stupidity thrown in for good measure.
So, the governing elite and the electorate go through these games of posturing and poses, leaving the real decisions to be hidden in massive dry texts or legislation and regulation that only a professional analyst could untangle.
I always consider World War I; almost all the antagonists and the protagonists enjoyed some form of representative system of government with wide popularity of the decision to go to war.
I recall only the names of Juarez in France (assassinated – likely by the French Government) and Bertrand Russel (in England) who opposed that war; two giant intellects that could see farther than any one else could – in my judgement.
That was some website. Thanks for the laughs.
Clonal Lang Thank you for your comment, firstly, based on their past comments on this last election, I do not share Mike and raven’ political views. Secondly I do fully support President Trump’ America first policy (hope to bone it’s true and will be done as said) important part of America first policy is keeping and bring back manufacturing jobs to US, which I believe in that more than I believe in Trump. IMO globalization, started by Clintons, is a new form of colonization, better said, a corporate colonization (like east or west India co.) of the world, which, includes our own heavily indebted deplorables in US, exploding their savings, running their credit cards to buy cheap items manufactured in cheap labor countries.
Colonel, I believe I misunderstood you on possibility of a civil war, I think you meant if president Trump, will not do, cannot do, or is prevented to do (presumably by the Borg and congress) what he said he will do, then there can be a rise to riot, by the disappointed, lied to, working class deplorables, and possibility of street level clash with the so called progressives. In that i think you are right, by experience I know, bread winning working class anger is not same in intensity as student or gender anger. An employer who has payroll every friday knows this well.
“for a nefarious plan to loot and oppress”
Loot makes sense, what would oppress be for?
turcopolier wrote:
‘”Carnage?” If you have a nice income or a university hide-out like the three of you then there is no “carnage.” On the other hand if you are an unemployed or semi-unemployed Deplorable the “carnage” is evident on every hand. ‘
For those of you who say things like this I would like one of you, just once, to give PRECISE policy recommendations as to how Trump or anyone else can rectify this problem. It’s not a ‘Democrat’ problem any more than it is a ‘Republican’ problem. It’s a math problem and unless you are prepared to impose huge tariffs on imported goods then those jobs can only come back as jobs that pay something equivalent to what people doing those jobs overseas are making. That means low wages, no pensions, no healthcare – nothing like what these people were used to in the past. The fact of the matter is the period after WWII was a very unique period in human history where large numbers of otherwise unqualified people could make a decent living because of the sheer volume of production that needed to be completed. The world doesn’t need that volume of production per person any longer and it sure doesn’t need it by people who developed a lifestyle they can no longer afford nor that the world is prepared to subsidize.
This is a horrendous problem for our country and Trump is going to make it worse in my opinion. Much, much worse. He apparently left large numbers with the hope he could do something and he can’t. He can’t single handedly impose those types of tariffs and he could never get it through Congress. If he somehow did it would simply make the rest of the economy much worse off than now. What people don’t like and they can’t seem to understand is the laws of math are immutable throughout the universe and it’s math that is the determining factor in this problem. If your skills are equivalent to somewhere elsewhere making $2 an hour then you are worth $2 an hour. That’s it and there is nothing Trump can do to change that.
I don’t mean to sound harsh but I keep thinking about a piece I saw on MSNBC recently where Nicole Wallace was talking to a guy in Erie who had received his layoff notice from a GE plant during the campaign and he decided to vote for Trump because he thought Trump would ‘do something’. Wallace should have had the guts to tell him there is nothing anyone could do to bring his $30 and hour job back because there isn’t. There were a few others she interviewed and I was just stunned at their detachment from the reality. I felt very sorry for them.
GCP
“For those of you who say things like this I would like one of you, just once, to give PRECISE policy recommendations as to how Trump or anyone else can rectify this problem” No! No! I do not run the government. I do not have the responsibility to do what you ask but I have eyes to see what is wrong. Your remarks condemn the American people to a future of poverty. I do not accept that and trump does not accept that. pl
Not “privatized,” if I understand this correctly, but changes are in the works:
http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/military-retirement-pension-thrift-savings-plan
If Germany can, why can’t US?
I think that is the way Reagan’s govt worked. He was shot in his second year, I think, and was way worse off than anyone knew. I think George Bush was in charge of the govt, as well as the secretaries. And mistakes were made.
I think US could do 2 things:
1 – Diminish the size of Finance Capital; freeing capital for manufacturing and services.
2 – Rebuild US infrastructure
That would keep things going for a generation or so and after that, as my grandmother – may she be well wherever she would be – would have said: “God is Great.”
turcopolier wrote: ‘ I do not have the responsibility to do what you ask but I have eyes to see what is wrong.’
It’s OK. I understand.
Then let me ask you this question. Suppose Trump had the power to unilaterally impose these tariffs. This would have immediate negative consequences for those who live along the coasts – for those who engage in a lot of foreign trade. These are mostly Democratic areas. Should these people who mostly are more well qualified to participate in a modern economy be sacrificed for the rust belt?
For those who think the Democrats need a ‘come to bejesus moment’ how should they go about this when it is quite clear the vast majority of their future constituency is prepared to participate in a modern economy?
What if we just do away with the 501C3 entirely? There are too many of these organizations that do not benefit the community, which is why the designation was made in the first place.
No, no, no.
Globalization is not a form of Colonization, just ask any of those Indians who are now in California or those of them in India that work in the Information Technology sector.
Visit the city of Heredia in Costa Rica and see for yourself all those young Costa Ricans – men and women – who work for US multinational countries and are extremely happy with those white collar professional jobs.
And such places exist in Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and Egypt.
These are globalization winners.
At the same time, in US, the young men and women who work in the East and West coasts often cannot build enough equity – in the form of housing – even though they are college-educated.
In San Ramon, California, there is talk of building adult dorms for the young people who work in various corporations there since only C-Level executives can afford housing in that city (and commuting – even 12 miles – will eat up 45 minutes quite easily).
These are the American well-to-do losers of globalization.
GCP,
“It’s a math problem…”
NO it has never been a math problem. It has always been a matter of principles.
I smell Soros behind this.
I did notice today they are all being charged with felonies.
Oh, that explains all the way worse verbiage from the women then. Seems hypocritical to me.
GCP
That is a fair point. They should not be expected to do anything but if they want their way they must muster the votes for it under our constitution. pl
I agree. The best I can ascertain is they want free abortions and choice of free sex wherever and with whomever they want and perceive the repeal of the ACA as somehow threatening that. So, in other words, idiots. I can’t give any credence to the perceived outrage of “grab them by the pussy” as they are clearly exponentially worse in their insults. To me it is shameful behavior and will fall into the wasteland of politics just like the Occupy movement did. Once Soros runs out of money or decides he isn’t gaining enough it will stop.
larry kart
that sounds a lot like the present federal civil service retirement system. the problem is that most enlisted men, IMO, especially the younger ones, are not mature enough in terms of financial planning skills to save the money they will need. pl
All,
A video. How many security checkpoints were blocked?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9dLAKldLapw
Babak,
The GOP leadership said they oppose ANY infrastructure development.
1) Eliminate taxes on the first $250,000 of income. Move to a national consumption tax.
2) Eliminate taxes on the first $12,000 of income for Social Security and lift the ss cap. (Moynihan was working on this when he retired)
3) Free up the market. We currently subsidize sugar. WE SUBSIDIZE SUGAR. That is insane.
4) Free up the market, we subsidize technology that reduces labor. Then we tax work. Back wards and devastating. The tax code must go.
5) We subsidize poison to reduce labor.
Of course this will not happen. The democrats and republicans have crafted the tax code over 40 to 50 years to favor their special interests ahead of the interests of the people much less the constitution. Call me a dreamer.
But the “Rust Belt” became so because of US Government policies that, over several decades, pumped capital from those wealthy industrialized states into other parts of the United States; feeding the parasites, as it where.
After all, the Rust Belt did produce – and still produces in a much diminished manner – things that people want to buy.
Look at NYC, how many hundreds of thousands of working people over there are dependent on US Food Aide? And why?
Put another way, Germany, Korea, Japan, and China are not in the process of de-industrializtion – quite the contrary. They seem to have absorbed the lesson of “Wealth through Industry”; which many in US seem to have forgotten.
A solid move to a flat rate income tax with zero ability for deductions will kill off all 501c3’s. Maybe he will get around to that?
Sorry – meant “Jaurez” and not “Juarez”.
Trump has been a supporter of single-payer for years. Any New Yorker who has paid attention during those years can tell you that. But he shut up about it about 9-12 months before he announced.
Who knows where he is now.
More than once. You just heard it once, that’s all.
Americans are used to thinking of there being only two parties but that isn’t entirely the case here. Sure DJT ran under the Republican banner but he also ran against the Republican establishment. He is certainly not totally in alignment with the Republicans in the House or the Senate.
The crowds will have zero effect on Trump and his team, but I will bet the Republican party will be keeping an eye on it. After all the Republicans are still going to have to win elections after DJT is gone. Sure the right has close to unprecedented power right now. But that doesn’t make their approval ratings great and there is nothing like being in power to make people hate you. If the Republican party is to be a success going forward they are going to have to gain at least some favourably with the 51% of the country that are women and the ?% that aren’t white and the ?% that aren’t hard core Christian. Repeating what happened this year every 4 years isn’t in the cards.
Having said that the Democratic party seems hell bent on keeping the Republicans in power and the left desperately needs to get rid of the hooligans at their marches.
Trump continues to turn off the majority of USA citizens with his REACTIVE, thin skin talk and tweets. That might play with the “Tylers” who get rived up with it, doubtful he will ever pull in a majority… as such, will never be a minority electorate Prez.
If he would just shut up and do his agenda he would have a much better chance of pulling it off!
re: “Should these people who mostly are more well qualified to participate in a modern economy be sacrificed for the rust belt”
GCP,
To me this sound very much like another definition of “non-deplorables”. A different point of view posits that these “well qualified new economy” participants and their masters:
i-created the “new economy” under false pretenses by shipping technologies developed by tax-payer funds overseas;
ii-siphoned off whatever wealth the deplorables had, including their assets, retirements, education…
iii-and, now, after the dispossessed democratically kicked them out using current US law, are complaining about “fairness”.
IMO, as English Outsider states in a separate post, all of the social justice concerns trumpeted by the “non-deplorables” are Borg propaganda which conflates the ongoing global rapine with “fairness” issues.
Tacitus saw this two thousand years ago:
” Raptores orbis, postquam cuncta vastantibus defuere terrae, mare scrutantur: si locuples hostis est, avari, si pauper, ambitiosi, quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiaverit: soli omnium opes atque inopiam pari adfectu concupiscunt. Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominibus imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. ” (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/ag01030.htm )
What/who gives the right to “well qualified new economy participants” the authority to define fairness? They are responsible for the blood and misery of millions in MENA, broken countries, extrajudicial killings, and a U.S.A well on its way to becoming a banana republic.
“New Economy” and “Social Justice”, what a farce.
Ishmael Zechariah
That goes for a BIG lie Trump told the coal miners in W Va, Pa, Oh.
Those jobs are GONE to surface coal mining and natural gas..NO way coming back to anywhere prior levels. Much easier, cheaper,safer to strip off the top of a mountain, than go underground!
THE ONE truth (only one I can recall) the H Clinton told was that those unemployed miners would need retraining which her govt would offer.
Ditto the concept of a public corporation when originally formulated. Businesses had public responsibilities in return for government protections. That went away in 1980 when the concept of shareholders value took precedence over public responsibility.
Well, if the working class (the deplorables) who are and supposed to be the majority of consumers of goods and services, can be given decent manufacturing jobs and a better wages then fast food job, a universal health care like medicare, they can afford to buy more expensive goods and services. We can produce better, cheaper and more abundant food than most of industrialized world, but we can’t do the same with our manufacturing?
Let me know how many black church goers are killed by a young “white sheet” influenced hater. Trump has that fringe just as much as the Libbers has the torch throwers
It goes both ways!
I think the 1963 Civil Rights march changed politics and from 1965 to 1969, several marches against the Viet Nam war changed politics too. Whether this one will also do so is too early to tell, but there where hundreds of thousands of very determined women there and if they stay determined, they have to potential to change politics too.
All,
I’m ticked. I’ve been in too many of these and seen asses come out of nowhere to threaten all of us.
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/paid-protesters-planning-to-cause-chaos-in-dc-and-block-peaceful-inauguration-for-trump_11172016
Enlighten me about the tax cuts for Hollywood, please.
Ann –
I would vote for that. Unfortunately the congressional right wing and Pence would never let that happen.
But then again, Trump and his Press Sec continue to bring up the media’s attention to it. LET IT DIE! Focus instead on his agenda. Such a thin skin!!!!
Correct. Started with the bank lobbyist Alan Greenspan in 1983 when he raised SS fees hoping the hoi polloi would rebel and demand private SS accounts at the increased cost–which never happened–and Reagan believed his BS about Social Security running out of money.
Social Security cannot run out of money. Social Security payments are mandated by law. They are not dependent on collections. Read Freedom from National Debt by Frank N. Newman, former Deputy Secretary of the US Treasury under Clinton.
Whose principles? Yours?
It’s always been a math problem and always will be unless we do something to find these folks domestic work that isn’t subject to foreign influence.
Colonel –
Babak’s two policy recommendations are the way to go. I hope Trump is able to sidestep the right wing in Congress to implement those steps. But Ryan and McConnell would rather destroy FDRs legacy instead of adding to it.
If Germany can what? I’m not sure I understand the question.
I do think there is a lot we could learn from them if your question relates to how they can compete globally and keep most of their population gainfully employed. I think the most obvious answer is their workforce, across the broad range of people, is probably more skilled and technically capable of competing.
aleksandar,
The strangest recent developement is how all the “word people” listed by group in your comment went from their hardy perennial russophilia and Cold War Skeptics suddenly all became anti-russianitic racist anti-russianites. How did that happen so fast?
How did they all become NaziNazi Banderazi sympathisers? How did they all become “Assad must go” CLEJ sympathisers and GAJ supporters? What is the power that the Klinton Koolaid Kult has over the minds of these people?
GCP, Babak
There are no easy answers after decades in which our economy got financialized and credit growth substituted for real median incomes. Additionally, technology is relentless in automating tasks. We now have even high paying white collar jobs getting automated as machine intelligence start-ups take on that. Bridgewater, the largest hedge fund has been developing software that embeds machine intelligence to replace hedge fund managers and traders who make multi-million dollar wages.This is not just a problem for western economies but also for the low wage economies.
I agree with Babak that first step is remove the incentives that benefit finance and credit. IMO, we should reduce big government and the monopolies that feed on that trough to the detriment of the innovators. The playing field must be leveled for small business that can’t fund the armies of tax accountants and lawyers to game the complex regulatory and tax code and big business with the political connections receive the massive subsidies. The starting point has to be a fundamental restructuring of the playing field where real competition and innovation can take place. This will of course be fought tooth and nail by the entrenched interests. The bailout of Wall St speculation and the subsequent printing of money at enormous scale to fuel financial asset levitation is the perfect example of what is wrong. The spending of trillions in causing great instability in many parts of the world is another example of what is wrong. What if we had spent those wasted dollars at home instead? The establishment of both parties and the Borgist media were cheerleaders for both these monumental errors. How can we expect they’ll green light anything that will reduce their privilege? I recall Zanzibar forecast what would likely happen as we were reeling from the financial crisis in the winter of 2008. He was spot on. He noted only a revolution would provide for fundamental reform. I hope we don’t get there as a civil war like any war is so destructive to all sides.
turcopolier wrote:
‘Your remarks condemn the American people to a future of poverty. I do not accept that and trump does not accept that.’
Not for all but certainly for some is a possibility; however, I would argue that’s a result of supply side and 16th century economics as practiced by Republicans as much as globalization (although it’s a different discussion than this one on Trump).
So you think Trump thinks differently and he means it? Why does he make those ties in China? Obviously, we disagree on his intentions.
I don’t think we should conflate ‘the American people’ with certain sections in the Rust Belt. I’m sure there were pockets of poverty in Venice or Florence during their heyday but most of the population did well compared to other periods in their existence. I’m just not sure what it is people want to do other than turn the country over to the Rust Belt to the detriment of everyone else. I’m still waiting for suggestions.
Babak Makkinejad wrote: ‘Rebuild US infrastructure’
This is the most obvious place to start but it will require lots of deficit spending. How do you plan to get this type of spending through a Congress dominated by Rust Belt senators and congressmen?
All,
He’s steamed that he lost a billion dollars so now he wants to cost us.
https://www.rt.com/usa/366579-soros-orgs-driving-trump-protests/
All,
I want to make sure I sent the correct link.
I saw a video of an elderly man on a cane and his wife being teargassed and I am still furios. Thanks George!!
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
GulfCoatPirate,
Well . . . that’s what Protectionism is for. Begin by forbidding any further Free Trade Agreements. Finish by abolishing all the ones we are trapped in now. Spend the next few decades rebuilding in America the thing-making industries which used to exist in America. Pay American industry-rebuilders an American wage with American benefits for rebuilding the industries.
Then pay American thing-makers an American wage with American benefits for making things in the thing-making factories.
Of COURSE we can’t do that NOWWWW. That’s the whole purpose of Free Trade Agreements . . . to preVENT us FROM doing anything about it NOWWW. So forbid any more Free Trade Agreements and then abolish the ones we have now. And realize that the International Free Trade Conspiracy, acting through all of America’s Free Trade Enemies, will treat a Protectionist America the same way the Great Powers treated the infant Bolshevik Republic in its earliest years.
GulfCoastPirate,
They spent the last few decades making a fortune off their country’s misfortune.
Now let them pay.
Yeah. Where’s the reporting on this? I have bored the hell out of correspondents here for several years trying to explain how federal–not state and local–government accounting works over the wild objections of some. (Thing is I was accurate.)
Obama’s first order of business was to let the bankers off the hook, claiming we had to look forward.
He allowed the Federal Reserve to pump $29 trillion–not billion–into the banks globally to prop them up until Congress put a stop to it in 2010. Read a colloquial report about it here: http://www.newsmax.com/StreetTalk/Economist-Fed-Exposure-Trillion/2011/12/13/id/420763/. You can find the actual paper with the details and numbers at the Levy Institute. Not going to bother looking for the link.
Obama didn’t leave the country with, what?, $9 trillion in debt. What he did was leave $9 trillion in the bank accounts of the 1%.
The Debt Clock in Manhattan reads $19 trillion, almost $20 trillion. The Debt clock was created by Seymour Dersh, a NYC real-eatate mogul who had as much understanding about federal debt after August 15, 1971 as he did about parenting: he is the father of serial killer of girlfriends and wives, Robert Dersh.
Anyone out there who has ever used Quick Books (Not Quicken, Quick Books) or a professional accountant knows there are two sides to the ledger. The left side are the Assets. The right side are Liabilities (and Equity as paid off). The two sides net to zero. That’s why double-entry accounting was invented: to prevent theft and double-check your work.
You can’t have a goddam Debt Clock without an Asset Clock. Where is it?
Furthermore, where are the Assets? They are in American housing, factories, businesses, bank accounts, mattresses, and piggy banks. And grandma’s US Savings Bonds.
As Frank N Newman makes abundantly clear in his 87-page book explaining all this: The National Debt is a record of all US money created by the US federal government since 1791 minus the US money destroyed by the collection of taxes. (Money received in taxes is destroyed; it is removed from the real economy.)
GCP
IMO you mischaracterize the Deplorables as inhabitants of the Rust Belt. IMO it is much wider than that. why would you not think that congressmen from the Rust Belt would be much more likely than others to vote for deficit financing of infrastructure projects. How do you account for the general devastation of the Democratic Party across the country? Gerrymandering by the GOP? As you know that was only doable when the Dems lost control of the legislatures. Which was the chicken and which was the egg? IMO the punitive tariffs he speaks of are merely a threat and bargaining position. what he really wants is a new business tax structure to lure business home. pl
AND
Agree. Europe is a baker’s rack of pipelines. Nobody bitches over there. Why?
GCP
“Why does he make those ties in China?” Business. You can do business with adversaries. Washington’s money was safe in London banks throughout the revolution. nobody says he was stupid. pl
GCP,
No, the point was astutely made (that the Democrats real issues are not the issues of the middle class) and you also obviously don’t even read what you write. Again.
The fact is Trump has already brought back the jobs, and more are to come. The grownups are in charge now. Allllll the argument by assumption fallacy (your post) in the world won’t change that or reality. Your loud mouth ways cost you what little credibility and $500 in a single year.
Here’s to seeing what the next eight years of TRUMP is gonna cost you?)
Gwi,
Just like the manufacturing jobs were gone and never coming back right? Oh wait.
Lmbo can’t even keep your lies straight.
And China’s USD profits from selling us stuff, and Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran’s USD profits from selling us oil, etcetera, etcetera, are safely parked in their savings accounts at the Federal Reserve in NYC. They’re not stupid either.
BY LAW, no USD can leave the US banking system. They can cash it in for their native currencies and wire it home, buy US Goods, real Estate, or Stocks, but they can’t remove USD from the US banking system.
Gwi,
Dwarfed by the numbers of whites and police killed by feral urban youf inflamed by the President’s support of Black Lies Matter.
Let me know how many Republicans supported Roof over Democrats supporting Black Lies Matter and Islam. Ill wait.
“Furthermore, where are the Assets?”
Spent.Consumed.Gone.Kaput!
In fine & luxury food for Congressional junkets. In medicare & medicaid payments well in excess of other countries with poorer results. In disability incomes & unemployment incomes. In food stamp payments that were eaten. In the wages of the vast federal bureaucracy and Booz Allen & SAIC. In the “investment” in Solyndra that’s now ZERO. In the subsidies to ADM for ethanol. In the over-inflated price for F-35s. In the trillions spent in Iraq, Libya & Syria that have killed and maimed millions. In the billions SPENT on boondoggles far and wide with NO return.
The federal government has few productive assets. That’s the reality. But, guys like you keep selling snake-oil that infinite government spending will lead to economic nirvana. Why has the median households income gone nowhere while federal debt ramped up? Sheesh!!
GCP
– Can’t argue the facts
– Nervous giggles
Gcp.txt
All
We do all remember that Lincoln was a minority president in his first term, right? pl
Eric Newhill,
I would not call Wendell Potter someone who runs a Kool-Aid stand serving you favorite flavor. He is a former health insurance industry executive who is now a consumer advocate. He has testified against the HMO industry in the US Senate and knows the health insurance industry from the inside. Bill Moyers has interviewed him and he highlighted why our health care system cost so much. A very knowledgeable individual.
Every congressman seems to have their own 501C3 to do “good” with. Both Dems and Repubs use this so it can’t go away its is on both sides of the aisle.
Laura,
As far as I can tell, there is only one issue Trump has categorically changed his beliefs on. And that is torture.
He has said nothing that indicates a change in his beliefs on social programs, immigration control, and job protection. And despite all the “incoming”, he stands firm on a desire to mend fences with Russia.
Think this through. Who practically benefits from hysterical condemnations of the Jester-In-Chief?
Precisely those GOP house members who “do NOT want to leave either SS or Medicare alone”.
I noticed this week that Lindsay Graham cited Trump’s “low approval ratings” as his reason to oppose any peace with Russia. This will be the establishment’s propaganda strategy to encourage the pro-corporate element in congress.
Think,
Paul
Exactly, it also tried to give them something transferable if they leave after one or two hitches. Also, I recall seeing a survey issued to the soldiers and it more or less asked would you be willing to accept less retirement for more salary now? They asked the same thing about the commissary and PX. Of course the young never contemplate getting old.
There’s a lot here Colonel.
I use the ‘Rust Belt’ because that is what seems to be the prevalent term on this blog. I’m willing to use any term people find acceptable.
I don’t think those congressmen would be ‘more willing’to vote for infrastructure projects. Because of their economic philosophies (with which I disagree) I think they would be less willing to vote for those projects. I personally support those projects and would be willing to pay more taxes for their implementation. I think it would be more likely we could put a lot of our people back to work at higher paying jobs than if we tried to wait it out by bringing jobs back from overseas. Look, it’s not that I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who find themselves in desperate situations. I just think Trump is a charlatan who will make things worse.
The Democrats problems stem from two things. They had control of everything in 2009 and didn’t frog march a single banker to jail despite what we now know were obvious crimes. If Obama had thrown 20 or 25 bankers in jail in 2009 Hillary would be president today. It also stems from trade. There is no doubt trade was poorly implemented and it came to be blamed on the Democrats. Just like civil rights earlier. However, like civil rights, it was good for the country and necessary we just should have kept a lot more control over the costs and benefits. Ironically, if you remember correctly, it was McConnell and the Republicans who went to Wall Street and acted as their protectors allowing them to continue their nefarious ways while the Democrats got the blame. They basically obstructed anything and everything and it worked for them. The Democrats should now follow the same strategy.
How do taxes generate enough revenue for a company to be lured back home? Every country has to raise funds and they have a mixture of taxes. If we lower taxes on business where do we make up that revenue? Do we transfer those obligations to individuals? User fees? Excise taxes? That’s kind of a complicated subject and we still don’t know if we can lure anyone back. If companies have a savings from labor costs how much do we need to lower their taxes to get them to come back? Do we need to make up for all their increased labor costs with lower taxes? What do we do about companies like Carrier where the state is now actually going to pay the company to keep some jobs here? Will the feds and states now be responsible for paying workers to keep jobs at home? It’s almost like all companies want to be like the professional sports where taxpayers pay for their stadiums and then also have to pay outrageous ticket prices. Do you really think that can work?
You looking for insane?
““We certainly respect people’s First Amendment rights,” Conway said. “But I frankly didn’t see the point. I mean, you have a day after he’s uplifting and unifying and you have folks here being on a diatribe where I think they could have requested a dialogue. Nobody called me and said, ‘Hey, could we have a dialogue?’”
As for blaming “elitist assholes” for the opioid crisis, you can’t be serious.
I would shift us from a war based economy as well, close every overseas base, bring home all the soldiers and refocus the military solely on domestic defense. More or less what Ron Paul was suggesting.
Next would be to bring back a Glass-Stiegal in its original form to prevent banks from speculating with depositors money.
Next would be to start a campaign for term limits for Congress and to eliminate campaign finance altogether. It is a lot easier to give each candidate a fixed budget and nothing more making it completely equal. Then outlaw lobbying altogether.
Next I would do a complete audit of the Federal Reserve, plus an audit of the gold depositories. After that we should enact a real central bank not a private bank masquerading as a government entity.
I would also enact trading rules for the markets to hobble algorithmic trades so that the markets are more open and less subject to collusion. A small tax on every bid ask and trade plus a tiny 0.1 second delay would cut these bandits out altogether. This is an area that doesn’t get any scrutiny but is so corrupt it is shocking.
I would make naked shorts illegal as well as leveraging instruments. A financial entity must be required to not have more than a fixed amount of assets at risk at any time. Perhaps 80% is sane. Right now most institutions are leveraged at over 500% of assets. Wit credit default swaps (loan guarantees at a percentage of total cost) must also be made illegal. This was a concept designed to circulate money horizontally to increase fees and bonuses. Last I woul take a hard look at IRA/401k fees.
There is plenty to fix.
And who was responsible, in the United States, for not investing in the education of the workforce?
GOP ceased to exist a few elections back.
But those who are still going under the same name make Bismarck look like a dangerous liberal; the man who introduced 8-hour day, old age pension, etc.
The more salient question is how do these people get elected; even from safe districts?
Thank you, Sir, for the reminder. And the subsequent death and destruction here at home. We should always be reminded of the WBS and how we got there. Same with WWI. Human folly remains.
Look, there is rhetorical question you can pose:
“Why is there always money to burn in one military misadventure after another but not rebuilding this bridge, or that fire station.?”
So what if “no USD can leave the US banking system”? The Chinese have sold hundreds of billions of Treasuries in recent months. Maybe the Fed or a pension fund or a TBTF bank purchased it. These are just financial transactions. And like the Japanese who bought luxury properties at the peak could face losses. The Chinese now own the Waldorf Astoria.
I agree, it is very effective Borg propaganda.
I saw the young educated Deplorable people (sharing a room with another person, the communal toilet being down the hallway and the communal shower one floor up) opposing Trump and deploring the departure of Obama.
Mind you, these are intelligent people, living in conditions analogous to Soviet Communal Housing – while the older generation is comfortably ensconced in their unreasonably expensive houses just around the corner. The place: Brooklyn.
Or many of the Iranians in US, who seem to have a fondness for Obama that facts do not warrant; in my opinion.
All:
Interview of Jack Ma at Davos – 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y69NU9aVRkQ
GCP,
https://berniesanders.com/15-federal-minimum-wage-included-democratic-platform/
Explain the math and your principle that lots of Americans are only worth $2 an hour to Bernie and the DNC.
“Whose principles?” Yours just lost an election.
Each year there is a march to support Roe v Wade [Jan. 22, 1972]. There was one in 2016, the purpose of which was to protest against restrictions placed by various states and there
There was NOTHING spontaneous about the march this past week-end, which was hi-jacked by Soros’ funded grougs (some 50+)
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
————–
[Authored by Katie Hopkins, originally posted op-ed at The Daily Mail],
Her sign said; ‘I am more than my vagina’. I asked her why she was at the Women’s March on Washington. She said it was because she wanted to show what democracy really meant.
Another white lady held a placard reminding me that ‘white silence = white consent but Black Lives Matter #BLM’. She said she was marching because women own their own bodies.
And a lady, pushing a stroller with two children on board, facing down the secret service, with a sign that made it clear Trump is ‘Not My President’.
more http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-22/having-vagina-not-enough-one-womans-view-million-pussy-march
Colonel,
I liked the inaugural address. If there are jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs plus a draw down from the rush to war with Russia, Donald Trump will be a successful President. I have to point that he is blaming the political middlemen sitting in the background for the carnage in rural America; not the real cause; the oligarchs’ seizure of power in the West and their draconian tax cuts. The Democrats are insanely blaming Russia. There is a battle ongoing right now between nationalist and globalist plutocrats over who controls the looting within NATO. I hate to crash the party; but the only way more jobs can be created is to start taxing off shored wealth, single payer health care, student debt jubilee and progressive income taxes to stop the hording and to finance rebuilding the West’s infrastructure. Not to mention, ending all the wars.
This was not a “march on the Mall” or a “protest rally.”
It had more of the hallmarks of a Hollywood movie roll-out, Main event in DC, with incredibly stupid and duped females providing unpaid service as the “crowd scene,” and ‘sister’ events in “selected theaters in a city near you.”
E Michael Jones has a theory that was borne out by the Obscenity on the Mall; he wrote about it in “Libido Dominandi;” it goes something like this: those (i.e. ‘the Borg’) who seek to overthrow or subvert the political order and undermine what Catholics/Christians call) traditional moral values, can most easily do so by persuading Masses that sexual libertinism is a cultural good and their Right. Once that easiest of all mores is broken down, it is relatively easy to drag other moral curbs down to the same debased level until, without too much trouble, killing, even mass killing, is endorsed as a societal “good.”
Activities intending to degrade sexual mores are employed as a means of social control and domination of the Masses.
Jones tells of a time when he was working in Germany, when the Bader Meinhof gang was at large. A poll revealed that a majority percentage of young Germans would have willingly sheltered gang members in their homes or apartments. Shortly after poll results were in, movies and other cultural events of a lewd sexual nature began to appear and proliferate: young women were depicted as sexual objects, and that sexualization was glossed as right and good. Female virtue/values were thereby debased. It’s easier to control the masses when they have given free rein to their passions and abandoned restraints.
Look carefully at those pink hats; they mimic “Pussy Riot,” the Russian group that desecrated a Russian Orthodox Church. It’s bad enough (in my prudish way of thinking) to hold that group of talentless agitators as models, but look at the pink hats again: they are said to be made to look like cats, — Pussy, get it? How terribly clever. — But if you look over the crowd wearing those badges of self-debasement, they don’t look like cat’s ears they look like horns. As in cuckolding. The women of USA were deluded into debasing themselves, in public, to cuckold and humiliate the menfolk of USA.
“Metaphor and symbolism
In Western traditions, cuckolds have sometimes been described as “wearing the horns of a cuckold” or just “wearing the horns.” This is an allusion to the mating habits of stags, who forfeit their mates when they are defeated by another male.
In Italy (especially in Southern Italy, where it is a major personal offence), the insult is often accompanied by the sign of the horns.
In French, the term is porter des cornes, which is used by Molière to describe someone whose consort has been unfaithful.
In German, the term is “jemandem Hörner aufsetzen”, or “Hörner tragen”, the husband is “der gehörnte Ehemann”.
Rabelais wrote the Tiers Livers of Gargantua and Pantagruel in 1546, by which time the symbol of the horns was “so well-known and over-used that the author could barely avoid making reference to it.” -wikipedia, “cuckold”
The Borg — or whoever provided the seed money for this Hollywood-ish production, knew exactly what he/she was doing. The stupid women did not and do not have a clue.
One clue to some of the operatives among the Borg that enabled the travesty in DC on 21 Jan 2017: On Sept 12 2002 Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before a House subcommittee. He named Iraq as the “keystone” in a “network of terror,” and Iran was a “member of the network.” He urged the Committee to support G W Bush in his intention to wage war against Iraq.
Subcommittee member Dennis Kucinich asked if “Iran would be attacked next.”
Not necessarily, replied Netanyahu. “Iran has 200,000 satellite dishes. We could beam [Hollywood movies] like Beverly Hills 90210 to the young people of Iran. Let them come to desire the lavish houses, clothes, swimming pools . . . That’s subversive.
Yes it IS subversive, and Iran’s leaders are not insensitive to the attempt to corrupt their young: I have to applaud them for this. (It’s worth noting that the Iranian government has taken measures to disable many of those satellite dishes. “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
The Pussy Riot Riot in DC was NOT an organic protest, it was a carefully staged event intended to shred one more vestige of social mores and restraint, to make it easier for The Borg to achieve complete dominance of a populace that had started to “resist” corrupting influences and to demand accountability of corrupt leaders.
This afternoon on the way home from the opera I passed a homeless man begging for money. What does America Ferrarra propose to do about people like him?
Gloria Steinem urged protesters to “protect the environment,” and she heaped praise on her hero, Hillary Clinton. Does Steinem have any comment on Clinton’s involvement in overthrowing Libya, which sits atop one of the largest aquifers in the region, one which Clinton and her pals sought to control? http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2015/06/18/bush-family-buy-up-guarani-aquifer/
The Pussy Riot cuckolding riot in DC was an abomination and an insult to women everywhere not just for the pervasive foul language but for the overall lack of intelligence displayed.
Which number would anyone estimate was larger: the cumulative IQ of the (claimed) half-a-million protesters, or the cumulative cost of the garments worn by the Trump women at Inaugural balls?
I understand that. All candidates have weak links but, compared with most others, that weak link strikes me as comparatively – weak.
It was awhile ago, but when I prepared for the CPA exam in the 1970s, Hollywood accounting was taught as an entirely different from the standard rules and procedures.
Dear “GulfcoastPirate”. I’m afraid I couldn’t disagree more. Have you been reading economics text books? That is not a profitable occupation, although there are a few economists around who aren’t cranks and who do realise that our current economic model is unsound. This is what I disagree with in your post:-
” It’s a math problem and unless you are prepared to impose huge tariffs on imported goods then those jobs can only come back as jobs that pay something equivalent to what people doing those jobs overseas are making. That means low wages, no pensions, no healthcare – nothing like what these people were used to in the past.”
I don’t believe it is entirely a maths problem, but the part that is a maths problems is, as you point out, insoluble. It’s insoluble the way most economists formulate it.
That’s because the equation sign is in the wrong place. I’m afraid I’m repeating myself from a previous thread, but third world wages don’t go with first world costs, and if they could be made to they don’t go with first world expectations. If that failed equation is pushed too far, as it has been, then the pitchforks come out and so they should.
The reason it’s been pushed too far is that the way things are now is agreeable to the better off and very popular indeed with the cronies. That doesn’t mean that the way things are now is some God-given and unalterable dispensation, as I believe your post implies and as the economists insist. It simply means that the cronies run the show for themselves and not for the people. The Gettysburg address is one of the most puzzling documents I’ve ever seen, but Lincoln got one bit clear enough. “By the people, for the people” should be what we’re aiming for and it hasn’t been happening much, in America or in Europe. Maybe now that “by and for the cronies” has received a check in the recent American elections there’ll be at least a few in the States finally looking to give that magnificent rhetoric some meaning.
If there are then there are some genuine maths problems to be solved. Automation must mean fewer jobs. Outsourcing should not be so personally profitable for those running the big corporations. Increasing costs of resources means that patterns of production and of consumption will alter. The financial system should, as it used to be and still is to a certain extent in Germany, be modified so that capital is allocated to needed investment; it need not be more a mechanism for transferring wealth from the many to the few. Above all the age-old problem of how to ensure enterprise and investment without creating a rentier class needs to be addressed anew. That problem never gets solved but it can be kept within bounds more than is the case at present.
So not an insoluble maths problem. More a series of simultaneous equations. That’s what the politicians are for: to thread a way through the maze of conflicting pressures and interest groups and come out with a solution that’ll keep the show on the road. It can be a mucky trade and has been recently, but it’s important that Trump and his team have a go at those equations, and I do hope the Trump movement has enough steam up to help him on his way. After all, even the machine politicians are beginning to realise that the cronies can no longer have it all their own way, not if the pitchforks are to stay in the barn.
SS demands to be reformed. There have to be tens of thousands of retirees who do NOT need to receive SS — whose money do you suppose it is that’s set the stock market soaring? Why should people who are collecting, thru their 401ks and investments, more than enough to live on in retirement, also collect SS?
Did anyone translate or explain the message behind the Indian drumming that opened the Pussy Riot Riot?
Or was that person invited simply to give resonance to the Virtue Signals?
heh
Hitler I would never have conducted such a shabby hate fest. Goebbels was a lot of nasty things, but he also had a finely-tuned sense of aesthetics. He would have sent Madonna off to Ilsa Koch to have her head shrunk.
All those educated females and none of them protesting Hillary Clinton’s schemes that brought about the deaths of so many Syrian women, and the complete disruption of life for women in Libya. And Iraq.
I remember not being able to have a checking account in my own name.
I remember not having the right to own real property in my own name.
I remember lying to a potential employer about plans to have children (I got the job, and became pregnant within the month).
Things have changed dramatically for women.
My daughter-in-law has 2 master’s degrees, teaches at university & runs a division of a high-profile firm. She also smears rainbows over FB photos of herself with my son, and went into deep depression when HRC lost. I’m sure she was in DC ‘protesting’ for wimmens’ rights.
I’m incensed that she would humiliate my son in the way she has. Men have rights, too.
come to think of it I vaguely remember all that double entry stuff from hours and hours prepping for CPA exam. Those were the good old days, when accounting was glorified bookkeeping.
But even then, Government accounting was and is different.
When Ma and Pa’s dry goods shop goes belly up, creditors take possession of inventory, etc., sell it off and get paid what they are owed.
How do ” American housing, factories, businesses, bank accounts, mattresses, and piggy banks” get repossessed to sell off at fire-sale prices to pay off creditors (after the lawyers take their 20%)?
As for grandma’s US Savings Bonds — exactly what surety is there behind them — the “full faith and credit” of the same government that issued them ? What if that government fails? Who pays grandma’s bonds? Does she get paid in mattresses?
James
The women knitted the hats themselves. You’re out of luck finding pink yarn in the store. What do you think, Soros knitted them himself?
Eric Newhill
Why don’t you read what Potter has to say and get back to me.
Col Lang,
“These things make me concerned that he [Trump] may well be an ADHD case or something similar”. (22 January 2017 at 09:45 AM)
I find that a very penetrating observation. That may well be correct.
Another angle worth considering is the fact that Trump became a very successful businessman. That requires intelligence. He also displayed a high degree of this when he understood the current economic make-up of the US population, and saw how it could be turned into electoral success.
Persons with ADHD sometimes also have (or have had) Asperger’s syndrome. One characteristic of this, in some cases, is high intelligence. Could this also apply to him?
Eric Newhill
Thanks for that post. It shows me that, like Tyler, you are mostly just full of ideological hot air.
What we need now is a good de-Nazification program.
Flip through Cora Sol Goldstein’s “Capturing the German Eye,” about the “psychological warfare” program of “icon destruction” and “de-Nazification” carried out “in a context where US military maintained monopoly on violence” and ideologies were imposed with “brutal, anti-democratic, force,” against the German people for three- to five- years post war.
As Goldstein explains forthrightly, Jews were at the forefront of those programs, and operated against the wishes of and behind the backs of the US Congress and War ministries overseeing occupied Germany.
imo The same people who carried out that “de-Nazification” are the ones who provided seed money and program for Women’s March.
Col Lang
Who can make heads or tails out of what his concepts are? He says one thing, and his cabinet appointees say the opposite or his media people have to explain what he “really” means.
Col Lang
Not to defend Madonna, but I don’t think you move to London to avoid taxes. She married an English movie director, got divorced and I think she’s back in NYC.
LT
And we’re sure not to get fooled again. Certainly not by Donald Trump, right?
What should have been done?
In the post-war era what would have been a good point in our history to rally around the certitudes and methods at that point, and protect these and ourselves from whatever degeneracies they soon enough came to be subject to?
1950?
1956?
1960?
…the year of the British invasion?
If we set aside the work of those who conventionally study such things, and, instead, look toward a cogent explication of what eventually led people in the USA to “steep themselves in a vanished culture unable to self-determine a new direction” what would you have us read and investigate?
Pardon the quibble but MAD is an adult concept and not a threat. The threat, surely, resides in the idea that your side can be “last man standing ” in a relatively pain free taking out of the other side. MAD, despite the acronym, is the policy of the sane grownup.
kooshy
We do. Foreign companies invest billions in the US economy every year. From about $1.5 trillion in 2000 up to around $3.5 billion in 2015. The US is second only to China when it comes to manufacturing and it’s currently the biggest asset in our economy. US factories make twice as much stuff as they did in the mid 1980s, but with about 1/3 fewer workers, thanks to automation. I’ve yet to hear any real solution to the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs that’s devastated our rust-belt working class.
This is fascinating to me because I would associate social justice with the left and social darwinism with the right. So it is that the nanny state and collectivism are seen as the barrier to proper boot strapping, or, alternately, greed and rent seeking are seen as the barrier to proper boot strapping!
Is it true Trump will make the super rich so fantastically more wealthy that this will cause the greatest boom in our history, and the rising tide. . .? After all, the wealthy overwhelmingly supported Trump.
If not Soros, certainly other deep-pocketed poobahs of the Democratic Party, as well as the Party’s DC establishment. Why? To divert attention from the mirror. What these demonstrations are is a stellar example of the Iron Law of Institutions in action. Here’s an excerpt from Rationalwiki: “The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself.”
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_institutions
Yes, because they value, spend and pay their workforce well. We are providing them free security, for obsolete reasons, so their works can work and produce luxury goods that are sold to us without tariff.
Babak, IMO making a nation/ a country economically dependent on manufactured goods for US market via multi national mega corporations is a form of colonization, the minute these corporations move out or move to a cheaper labor country, the economic prosperity is gone. It’s Kit manufacturing (montage) often technology is not transferred, therefore you are always at mercy or goodwill of the multi nationals and their
home country rules. (remember sanctioning Iran/ Russia etc. they can leave on their own or by their home country rules).
Peggy Noonan’s WSJ post on Trump’s speech and this era of change is very perceptive… highly recommended! No paywall at this site.
President Trump Declares Independence https://patriotpost.us/opinion/47019
Anyway, it was a remarkable speech, like none before it, and it marked, I think, yet another break point in the two-party reality that has dominated our politics for many decades.
And so, now, it begins. And it simply has to be repeated: We have never had a political moment like this in our lives. We have never had a president like this, such a norm-breaker, in all the ways we know. We are in uncharted seas.
His supporters, who flooded Washington this week, were friendly, courteous — but watchful. Two Midwestern women told me separately that they used to be but no longer are Republican. They’re something new, waiting for a name.
They like Mr. Trump the way you learn to like someone you hired and will depend on. They judged him as exactly what’s needed to cut through the merde machine of modern Washington. He is a destabilizer; he shifts the tectonic plates; in the chaos that results, breakthroughs are possible.
And yet all admit that yes, we’re in uncharted waters.
The mood among Republicans in Washington is hopeful apprehension. Even Trump supporters, even his staff and advisers, feel it. No one knows what he’ll be like as president, how this will go. Including, probably, him. A GOP senator characterized his mood as “tentatively positive.” Another said, with a big grin: “I feel somewhat optimistic!”
… At the Kuwaiti Embassy I looked out at hundreds of Washingtonians of both parties — diplomats, lobbyists, military brass, journalists — all networking, meeting, greeting, all handsomely dressed. As I surveyed the scene I turned to a social figure of 40 years’ standing. “Do they have any sense they’re living through big history?” I asked. “Noooooo!” she said. The look on her face — if it had been the late 19th century she would have said, “Pshaw!” History is not what they’re about, she was suggesting; satisfying their personal and immediate hungers is what they’re about.
————–
This how the Borg media needs to be handled.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-22/blistering-interview-conway-tells-chuck-todd-we-are-going-have-rethink-our-relations
Are the deplorables his adversaries? If he felt so strongly about them why didn’t he make those ties here? Fact is, he could care less about any of those people and the idea he is going to bring any of their jobs back is preposterous.
Ann
All good suggestions. I would add that all members of Congress and all political appointees go to a 401k pension plan with no matching and enrollment in medicare while they’re on the government payroll not some platinum health plan.
There should also be means testing of SS & medicare and caps on federal health spending per person.
Babak,
Have you ever looked at a map of where the US government spends its money in relation to where it gets its money? The red states take out far more than they put in and the blue states gets far less in return than what they put in. NYC has people on food stamps? So what, is that a surprise? So does every red state in the country.
We can’t do what the countries you talk about do because a lot of the people we are talking about in this country don’t have the requisite skills. It’s really as simple as that. One of my degrees is in physics. Walk into any physics classroom in any US university and tell me how many of these ‘deplorables’ you see studying to better their lives. Let me help you – you won’t see many if any at all. Then go to any chemistry. biology, math or any other scientific type classroom. Tell me what you see. Go outside the classroom and you’ll see plenty of Tyler types whining about blacks and the 60’s but what is that going to get them in terms of worldwide competitiveness? Nothing, not a single thing. Then compare the scientific learning in those countries you mention to ours. It isn’t even comparable.
Sorry for the rant …
It was not an accident, but it wasn’t “engineered” either. The women knitted, crocheted, and sewed the hats for themselves and for each other. They’ve been at it since Thanksgiving: https://www.pussyhatproject.com/
Eric Newhill,
“These are just people with deep unresolved personal issues.”
Opinionated rubbish. Why do you have so much hate in your heart?
“Feel better?” I’m sure they do. Thanks for asking!
Gwi,
You learned nothing about lying polls from the last election and had an ugly surprise on election day. You have learned nothing since.
ann,
Here’s an example of one that should go:
“The Directors Guild of America and the Independent Film & Televison Alliance put together a brochure in 2010 outlining the benefits of the tax code, known as “Section 181.”
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/fiscal-cliff-hollywood-tax-incentives-407442
He’ll do whatever he can (& that will be a lot) to be accepted as a peer among old money billionaires.
All else is theater. Enjoy the show.
You’d think the white drug problem in flyover land is someone else’s fault? Sorry, but that’s not the American Way. Those punks had lousy parenting, lousy churches and lousy schooling … just like in our urban centers. Their degraded culture and lack of constructive values is their issue, no exceptions.
“and leftist generally – being insane.” I lean left by today’s standards, and was a moderate Republican many years ago. SWMBO leans much more left than me. Neither I nor she are insane. What exactly do you expect to accomplish with this BS?
GCP
You seem to me to be an irreconcilable anti-deplorable. In your America the Deplorables are uneducable dead-beats who suck at the federal teat endlessly and who are largely toothless consumers of grits and other deplorably disgusting things. You, EA and Raven do not want the rest of us as countrymen unless we accept a second class of “citizenship.” do you really want to be on this blog? IMO your angst is permanent. perhaps you should join some sort of ant-deplorables group. Ah, you already do belong to one. . you are a Democrat. pl
EA
Consolidate your comments or I will not approve them. pl
FB Ali
Yes. I think he is somewhat handicapped. pl
What is it about white culture in the USA that grows armed white kids shooting up school mates? What was it about white German culture that allowed the Holocaust to happen. Blood flows from all cultures at the fringes.
NYC has local government employees who are on food stamps; last I heard it was close to 700,000 souls.
All my degrees are in Physics and my class was never larger than 20 in all my years of education.
The most popular major when I was young was psychology (although we used to joke about all the Becky Homecky students seeking an MRS degree.).
Even an STEM degree is not a guarantee against labor displacement.
Can someone on the Committee explain what happened with those soldiers who appeared behind Trump during his speech, then left as quickly. As they were leaving, I thought the coup was about to kick off. Any ideas?
China, Japan, Korea are not manufacturing from kits; at some point they did but not any longer. Just go test drive the new Genesys sedan.
And again, why would IBM, for example, pull out of India?
Where else can they find so many willing Javawallahs?
And on those Javawallah wages, a young Indian couple can build their home, have their family, buy their scooter, and arrive at a level of middle class comfort undreamt by their parents and grandparents.
The Toyota Technical Center in India has a few hundred of the most coveted jobs in India.
And the Ford factories in Mexico, the highest quality factories that Ford operates, offer Mexicans some their best wage employment opportunities.
This is not colonialism as practiced by the Perfidious Albion in India. Saying it is does not make it so.
Croesus,
Because they ( and their employERS) paid into it. The fact that they paid into it means it is theirs according to how much they paid in. This is recognized in the Social Security law.
( And the self-employed have to pay into it both the employEE portion AND the employER portion. So it is rightfully theirs however much other money they may have been good enough or lucky enough to make).
“After all, the wealthy overwhelmingly supported Trump” – Dr. Puck
Au contraire! You are blinded by your partisan lens.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillary-clintons-wall-street-dilemma-1454637448
The big hedge fund mavens and Wall St as well as big pharma & trial lawyers & the big defense contractors, were all big backers of the Borg Queen. She and her PACs raised over a billion dollars for her campaign.
“Including contributions from both hedge funds and private equity firms, Trump and groups supporting him have commanded $239,250, a more than 100-fold increase from the mere $2,054 he’d received in the first half of this year, according to the CFRP’s latest data. But at the same time, Clinton has managed to win another $20 million from those funds, bringing her total hedge fund and PE firm haul to $45.2 million, up from the $25.6 million reported over the summer.
Indeed, Clinton is the top beneficiary of the industry’s political contributions, while Trump doesn’t even rank among the top 10 recipients. After Clinton, hedge fund favorites included Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie, all Republicans. The data tracks the spending in the primary as well as the general election.”
http://fortune.com/2016/10/26/trump-hillary-clinton-hedge-fund-campaign-finance/
BraveNewWorld,
The non-hooligan leftists are also non-violent. How are non-violent non-hooligans to get violent hooligans out of their marches?
Aussie Citizen
the armed forces are heavily committed to the inaugural. These commissioned officers were administrative aides who were asked to move because the “shot looked bad. pl
gowithit
What is it about black kids in Chicago? don’t be an ass. pl
Gwi,
What is it about black culture that allows them to think that they can rape, steal, and murder with impunity?
What is it about progressive culture that invents more and more convoluted leaps of logic to excuse minority criminality?
The blacks attack and kills whites exponentially more than whites harm blacks. Reality has an AR bias.
EA,
You, the original argument by assumption liberal, calling anyone “full of hot air” displays an amazing lack of self awareness in life.
Chris Wallace on Fox News today challenged the Trump administration on their “alternative facts” re the inaugural crowd. Wallace stated that he was there and noted the large empty spaces which the published comparison pics showed.
the TV audience was also the lowest in 40 yrs for an inaugural.
why does Trump insist to focus on such trivia, rather than focus on his agenda? It is not playing well to US in general, only to his fans who he already has firmly.
My point is not to excuse “black kids in Chicago” Rather, brutality/blood letting is known to exist by all cultures at the fringe.
As was Bill Clinton and Bush II, and both re-elected
Thanks Turcopolier, just one more thing. Before these officers came out, one came down the stairs holding a similar small object in each hand. He then placed them either side of the President and walked off. The camera switches to Obama, then back and all the rest of the officers are there. The speculation is the Military was signalling they stand behind Trump, but you are probably right about the optics.
I have also seen this from a wider angle, the guard at the door behind Trump open for this officer carrying what looks like reversed revolvers. The (I assume) secret service guy standing next to the guard follows this officer down the steps towards the President, then returns to his post when all the rest of the officers arrive. The guard and this secret service guy all react at the same time to the request to open the door, and the SS guy seems to be carrying a mobile phone, which he puts in his pocket when the door first opens. After all the officers have dispersed, he takes out the mobile phone again and has a look.
This might all be very normal to the Committee, but to this layperson on edge that night expecting a coup this all smells a little funny.
IMO,If Donald Trump shut up tomorrow,quit tweeting and became the most kind,soft spoken,genteel president we have ever had BUT continued just as determinedly to implement his agenda,he would be reviled,hated and resisted even more than he is now by the crazy far left.The crazies on the far left are so angry because they are fearful.They are fearful because they feel incompetent to get what they want out of life with the skills they possess and the effort they are willing to exert.They want somebody to give it to them…….the government.
Colonel Ali,
Asperger’s is a form of autism that comes with sever social handicaps. Say what you will about Trump, but people with Asperger’s don’t land women like Melania or run billion dollar businesses powered by force of personality.
Good characterization, Colonel. GCP seems to be of the Marie Antoinette school.
CWZ,
So would you would have me accept, just for a couple examples, women in vagina costumes shouting in the streets, celebrities (acting as representatives of the people) publicly stating they want to blow up the White House, because they imagine the man who just entered it is going to be Hitler 2.0, as normal and sane behavior?
Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner gets drunk, kills someone, and the left lauds him/her as a “hero” and courageous because he/she wears a dress and lipstick and wants to cut off his/her penis? And you tell me it’s mean and inappropriate to suggest that maybe people on the left have unresolved issues?
Think man, for a moment, what you are saying and asking of me.
Colonel Ali,
I thought about what you said some more, and wondered if the fact that most of the Trump “speeches” shown by the MSM are spliced together “highlights”. I attended some Trump rallies, and came away thinking that the man has insanely high “verbal IQ” and the wits to match.
I observed this based off the fact that Trump could be talking about something, respond to something someone in the crowd said, address that, talk about a third point, and then string them all together in his original point.
An example: Trump is talking about illegal immigration, someone yells “Keep out the terrorists!” Trump agrees, begins talking about IS and how Russia is fighting them, segues into the Iran deal and how nations don’t respect us anymore and it hurts Israel, starts talking about Israel and then mentions Israel’s wall, talks about the wall HE wants to build to keep out illegal aliens and terrorists.
Taken separately its stream of conscious style yammering (akin to what passes for “debate” in debate competitions nowadays). In person, its rather remarkable for someone not using a teleprompter.
Croesus,
I’ll take a shot at translating the Indian drumming. Lost souls with personal issues that feel like they don’t fit in, angry about that, self identifying, symbolically, with a culture they perceive as being maligned.
I work for a major US corporation. I see about a 50/50 women/men split at all levels of management. I see women being well respected and making good money; equal to what the men make.
My hobby is breeding and racing thoroughbreds. I see women exercise riders -many of them quite attractive and fit – on the backside of the tracks (very rough places btw) being respected generally, My wife used to be such a woman at Saratoga; so I have some personal insight into that life.
These aren’t the women marching and shouting with vagina hats and foul mouths. The marchers appear to me to be some other set of women entirely. More like the kind I see associated with the state college that is in my town.
Since I was present, I have a very different view. While a seed was provided, it was not all that organized to start with, but it thrived on social media and that explains the large size of the crowd. There was a multitude of opinions expressed and the only coordination that I saw was the “street preachers”, who were all equipped in the same manner. Everything else were personal choices. The reality is that a very large segment of our society have a very negative view of the new president. It may be ignored for awhile, but at some point the powers to be will have to deal with them. How they do that will influence the results.
SS is social INSURANCE. I pay into a pool to insure my car, but that doesn’t mean I am entitled to a return of those premiums if I do not experience an event against which the insurance protects me. Quite the contrary: to make a claim for payment when I have NOT experienced an insurance-covered situation is fraud.
Furthermore, the amount paid in, in SS as well as in car and homeowner’s insurance, is, for many people, far, far less than the amount drawn out. Insurance pools operate on the actuarial concept that not all participants in the pool will draw out of the pool. If everybody who paid into the pool demanded to draw out far more than they paid in, it’s self-evident the pool will become exhausted. But for a Madoff scheme, the invested earnings of the pool cannot possibly match the greatly increased demands of all of the participants.
lars
Were you here in the 60s? IMO the 1964 civil Rights march in Washington was an expression of a state of mind the country had already reached. It caused nothing. The pro-communist demonstrations in which well to do students marched in the streets carrying the enemy’s flags in Berkley and other places intimidated the Congress as they were intended to do and caused the congress to vote against furtherer support of the anti-communist Vietnamese. This collapsed their government. By that time the US had been out of VN for two years and a ceasefire was holding. pl
lars
“but at some point the powers to be will have to deal with them. How they do that will influence the results.” So, you wish to overthrow the result of the November election. pl
I don’t look at it as my “movement” but I will respond to your question. I have no desire to bring Trump down, I think in time the Republican congress will do that. I have never participated in any type of demonstration before, hard to believe since I lived in CA in the 60’s. There were diverse areas being addressed in the march, equal rights for LGBT people, pro choice, medical care, equal pay for equal rights, and women joining in support of not just women but in support of all races, creeds, cultures, and gender. My husband and another friend and her husband attended and I would estimate that 20% of the group were male. I went to the march in Raleigh and it is estimated that there were 20.000 in attendance.
As inferred by someone on this site, he felt women just wanted free abortions and having sex with anyone they want. I don’t think that is the case at all. The number of abortions have decreased as more women have access to birth control. And I’m not even sure what was meant by women wanting the right to have sex with whoever they want. don’t men want that right also.
I understand Christians being against gay marriage and abortions and birth control, but my feeling is if they don’t approve of these actions, don’t engage in them, but don’t tell others how to live their lives.
Another point unrelated to the “movement” is poverty in rural areas. This is not a problem in just the US or in just the so called rust belt states. We have a daughter who lives in Lima Peru, and that city has increased in size at an alarming rate due to the poor coming to the cities for work. I don’t believe Donald Trump will be able to bring back a vibrancy to these areas but I wish him well in this.
The last point is regarding Trump’s son, he is a beautiful boy, but I think he does have some problems. He will be getting the very best care, so hopefully all will be fine.
Sorry about the length but I wanted to address as well as I could what my thinking is.
His little son worries me. The boy does not seem to walk normally.
Colonel,
That’s what I have noticed also and why we always see him holding hands with the parents in most of their pictures. His mother has said that he is like his father, firing his own nannies and gardeners ( most probably in Florida).
At the inaugural luncheon, he was placed next to his maternal grandmother (she was on his LHS at table #13). He didn’t attend any activities on Thursday (not even the concert where his nephews and nieces were present) nor did he go to St John’s church with his parents on Friday morning.
I am definitely not upper class although I am white. I belong to no organization that encouraged me to attend the march, in fact it is the first demonstration I have ever attended. I don’t even know who you are referring to regarding “a Muslim” and the “usual hydra’s heads of Communist front groups.” I don’t think anyone else at the march in Raleigh NC would understand what you are talking about. Women joining together to support what they believe in might be a scary thing to some men but I like the sign held by one husband at the march, it said “Quality men do not fear Equality”.
A long list, Old Microbiologist; likely to be resisted by entrenched interests tooth and nail.
Money helps to get beautiful women; in certain suburbs of Connecticut one can see that empirically.
Yup.
All of them were oblivious to the Foreign policy decisions of Hillary Clinton and what flowed from them.
All that death and carnage was irrelevant to them.
Trump, to me, looked like the anti-War candidate – who could not dare to say so publicly.
Colonel,
Did you see this on Morning Joe?
MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough reported on his show Monday that the Donald Trump administration would not be moving the U.S. embassy to Israel to Jerusalem immediately as promised, but would wait until completely negotiations with various Arab countries.
“We have been hear an awful lot about Jerusalem,” he said. “The fact they are not going to move on Jerusalem for quite some time.”
“They want a peace deal in the Middle East, that is their top priority. And they have been told in no uncertain terms that the recognition of Jerusalem sets that back for the next four years. So that’s not happening for a while,” he continued.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/joe-scarborough-source-says-trump-wont-move-embassy-to-jerusalem-anytime-soon/
Guess some of his ME FP advisors must have had a good explanation .
Colonel,
I never said any such thing. Like others I’m just trying to analyze and understand what is going on in this country. I have no ‘angst’ but I’m not a military man or a government man. I was trained in science so I suppose I look at the world a little differently than many of you.
Since I seem to offend you I’ll bow out now. Sorry to be a bother.
Babak Makkinejad wrote: ‘Even an STEM degree is not a guarantee against labor displacement.’
No, it’s not but there must be a general level of STEM understanding among the citizenry for a country to carry out an industrial policy such as in the countries you mentioned. My point is we don’t have that here among our citizenry.
Would you mind to let us know what exactly Trump will do in his first year and how it will make America Great Again, Tyler, dear?
OM,
He’s said he wants to destroy Trump. This is about the protest mayhem.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A1mzHZglBYI
LT,
I just watched a forum of potential DNC heads and NOT ONE would admit to what was done against Sanders to rig this for Clinton. They’re hopeless.
They certainly wouldn’t admit to the following
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
Stu and EA,
Potter was a communications guy. It’s his job to serve up the message that who ever is paying him wants served. In my experience communications guys know little about the nuts and bolts of the business. They don’t need to know.
I work directly for and with executives in healthcare insurance. There are lots of them. Potter is just one – unless you have relegated me to the janitor’s closet as well.
OM,
Amazing. There is also a move to charge people an outrageous sum in the future. I’m all for the right to protest but much stinks about what is going on with these owned managed groups.
I was telling some friends that unless my mother was in danger, I’d have to be dragged to risk any of these consequences again.
Exactly
Croesus,
I did not know what those hats were! Dang!
Thank you for the info on E. Michael Jones and the reminder from 2002.
We are being dragged lower and lower.
Warpig,
I know some who went. One is simply afraid bc of all the bullshit That she has been told about Russia.
Another is angry about potentional diminished rights of women, forgetting that HRC only cared about certain women . I’m disgusted and not alone
Sane Progressive
https://youtu.be/t1fmIufKIiM
GCP,
I don’t know what he’s going to do yet. I do see him attacked and that may make him more reactionary then people can stand back and yell SEE, SEE!!
I also am looking at everyone who is going to try to stop him and why.
OM,
Soros plans to stay flush with cash.
From Zero Hedge
We can’t be sure, but it has recently come to light that Soros has taken a large series of “bearish derivative positions” against US stocks
Optimax,
I’m not. Knowing what I know now, it seems that people read about the possible riots and may have to intimidated to show up. Others were brought in to block the security check points.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9dLAKldLapw
A headline in the Women Of The World section of Izvestia on the Hudson (aka NY Times): “Billionaire George Soros has ties to more than 50 ‘partners’ of the Women’s March on Washington”
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
Croesus,
I stumbled across aspects of this before, strictly this touches some of my deeper interests:
During this period [1945-49], the American occupiers actively vied with their Soviet counterparts for control of Germany’s visual culture, deploying film, photography, and the fine arts while censoring images that contradicted their political messages.
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo6161622.html
The bigger problem as far as art and the larger field of visual propaganda was that Stalin killed the rather promising Russian art scene just as effectively as the Nazis had.
De-Nazification and the US studies leading up to it is a much more complex issue then art and/as propaganda. …
Reminds me of an exhibition in Freiburg, with slight amendments via Google translate. Exhibition:
More than 250 objects tell stories of people at the time of National Socialism. Articles of daily life, photographs, letters, drawings, articles of clothing and personal belongings report on victims, perpetrators, resistance and fellow travelers. Some fates are contradictory and can not be clearly assigned to either side. All persons, events and objects have a concrete relation to Freiburg.
Site in German:
http://www.freiburg.de/pb/,Lde/1033558.html
The city’s museum page offers an English translation:
http://www.freiburg.de/pb/,Len/922950.html
Dear Colonel,
I think your comment about civil war is alarmingly prescient and merits further investigation.
To answer your question, I think it was a warning shot under the rubric (for the masses via the MSM stenographers) of identity politics. Warning that the campaign settled nothing.
The US is more divided at the popular level than it has been in a long time, but Trump exposed equally so at the power level (which is new). Over at moon of Alabama, b suggests Trump recruited the military power center for his campaign (the campaign that starts now). The media and new money (meritocracy – Bezos et al.) are on one side. Energy is on the Trump side. Soros is intriguing – perhaps evidence of blowback after so many successful color revolutions? Clearly the US color will be pink.
re: “He laid no blame on the 1% or Wall Streeters for this transfer of wealth. I was left with the feeling that, in spite of his rhetoric, the rich are his constituency.”
Yup. The irony is that if he is going to have any chance of coming through on his campaign promises to the “Deplorables” he’s going to have to buy in to the tenets of Modern Monetary Theory regarding the need for deficit spending to spur the recovery of an economy that is in the doldrums. But it has to be a specific kind of deficit spending. It must be structured to broadly boost consumer demand, unlike what Obama, Geithner & Co. did in 2009 when the new president told the banksters “I’m the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks.” They passed trillions directly to the TBTF and smaller banks on the assumption they’d lend the money out to industries to invest. But they don’t invest unless they see the likelihood of significant increase in demand for their products and services, which they didn’t. So the trillions had the effect of saving many banks that would otherwise have failed, and since it’s the 1% who, directly or indirectly, own most of the stocks and bonds issued by those banks, it was that 1% who benefited.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/modern-monetary-theory-primer.html
Having said that Trump – and the rest of us for that matter – may be screwed in any case by a secular trend over which we have no control. That is the inexorable decline in the net EROEI ratio: Energy Recovered On Energy Invested.
https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2017/01/what-is-this-crisis-of-modernity/
I agree the crazies on the left such as the anarchists may dislike him but I think normal American democrats would much prefer him acting more presidential. We may not agree with what he was saying but he would be easier to take. I imagine the radical right such as Alt-right or KkK would dislike him if he started acting ore presidential.
Anarchists are not democrats and were definitely not Clinton supporters. I agree their behavior was disgusting and should be dealt with harshly, however I’m not sure turning them into hamburger is necessarily a good idea, maybe teargas and arrest. The police seemed quite competent in controlling them.
Gwi,
Why doesn’t the media stop bringing it up? I saw that segment too and like you, the media is more peeved that the Trump Admin isn’t laying down and taking the media’s fake news.
Gwi,
No, that’s totally your point, engaging in this equivocacy fallacy nonsense when the reality is much different.
SST,
I suggest drafting some Non-Deplorables, with competitive “New Economy” skills (with or w/out a degree in physics) and the proper “social justice” outlook to fix this bridge:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/Delaware-River-Bridge-closed.html
I will take bets on the length of time it takes.
Ishmael Zechariah
P.s: That is one massive crack. The USA is lucky the bridge did not fall in.
1. Well then Lars, to paraphrase Bogie, You’ll always have DC. (and a pink hat w/ horns). Congrats.
2. The most effective “women’s” march I can recall is from a central scene in the film “Gandhi,” when the Indian people were led in protest against the salt tax.
The Indian men marched in ranks, unarmed.
British soldiers, armed and on horseback, harassed them, beat them, trampled them.
Indian women came along behind, picked up the injured and bloodied men, carried them away to care for them, enabling another rank of men to march against the battering British.
They had a righteous cause, not a set of whiney complaints. They were willing to put their lives (their fortunes, their sacred honor) on the line, for their cause.
They carried out their “protest” with dignity and courage.
They prevailed.
None of those characteristics apply to the pink hat (color) revolution.
3. I remember rallying on the Mall in Charlottesville in bitter cold in 2002 (?), protesting Bush’s impending decision to go to war in Iraq. We heard rabble-rouser speeches, signed an anti-war petition, then marched to Virgil Goode’s office to present it. Our effort failed.
Similarly, we bussed from C’ville to DC and joined a mass protest on the Mall there, protesting an impending war in Iraq. That effort failed. (The weather was warmer, however.)
I believe — rather, I fear — that Donald Trump has made the deal to be Arthur Balfour II: I fear he has bargained to give Iran to the Israelis in exchange for rapprochement with Russia.
Pink, horned hats on the Mall serve as a useful distraction from the very real threats to millions of lives in places like Iran, far removed from the consciousness of women who feel threatened that a Trump administration will halt taxpayer subsidies for abortions.
OM,
Don’t be classified as a terrorist
Washington Republican proposes charging protestors with ‘economic terrorism’
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/306580-washington-republican-floats-charging-protesters-with-economic-terrorism
Thank Mr. Swagger and Personality for this
a controversial component that would allow the military to indefinitely detain terror suspects, including American citizens arrested in the United States, without charge.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/with-reservations-obama-signs-act-to-allow-detention-of-citizens/
There were no mass protests about that.
kooshy,
the minute these corporations move out or move to a cheaper labor country, the economic prosperity is gone.
Exactly. When I was protesting the WTO agreements in Seattle a delegate who was staying in my hotel stopped me when I was returning one afternoon to ask why I was doing it. He told me he was from Poland and was happy about many things about this. I asked him where the influx of new jobs and companies came from. The answer was Germany.
I then asked him when and where the jobs will go next in the search for lower wages. He had no answer.
I often wonder if he thinks about our little chat.
Babak,
The more salient question is how do these people get elected; even from safe districts?
People aren’t paying close enough attention.
Not enough people vote in EVERY election.
We can’t find or fund people to even run for office.
I hope the last part is changing seeing that many small donations went to Sanders
Consider this:
When the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)
But:
If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. -Samuel Adams, revolutionary (1722-1803)
I agree with all of your recommendations.
Colonel – may I add to this thread a video of Trump holding a meeting setting out his industrial policy.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/823544828638142465
And a response from some of the industrialists:-
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/823564212215672832
On this thread there has been much discussion on whether it is possible to re-industrialise in a globalised environment. I believe we see Trump here starting to attempt it. It doesn’t look to be merely a PR exercise.
And the reinstatement of a high estate tax to prevent the establishment of the collection of all wealth in a few families.
Tidewater to Eliot,
This is an interesting topic, which I am prevented from getting into because of my growing puzzlement as to what exactly is the “North Atlantic Oscillation.”
My time has been further taken up with new information on the end of the Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Reason that is relevant? Core drillings from the Larnaca Salt Lakes on Cyprus –particularly at Limassol– give evidence that there were three hundred years of drought. This would account for the Sea People. Because wheat and other crops could not be grown from one generation to the next, the populations became nomadic. Ship nomads. Egyptian funerary monuments at Luxor are one of the few historical sources on the Sea People. Someone went to great trouble at the highest reaches of the government at that time to show those who came after what the Sea People who had ravaged Egyptian communities looked like. The ancient Greeks who followed knew something catastrophic had happened.
I have studied some ancient Greek history and literature and never heard much at all about the Sea People. There is now a new area of historical writing where the whole question of climate is carefully factored in.
From recent hippy communal experiments such as in Western Massachusetts, we know that the ancient division of labor of our ancestors between the sexes is normal and natural. If modern industrial civilization collapses in a decade or two, do you think that it is going to matter, as in Norway, that forty percent of all boards, both government and corporate, must have a quota of women?
This was old experiment. It seems to have been accepted in Norway. I think last year the number of women on boards in Norway was about 35.5%. In Japan–3%. In the US–19%. However, in the US there are still more men named ‘John’ on corporate boards than there are women.
I would think that in the future that will be mid-century, women will have a different kind of authority, in the societies that are still functioning. For the rest, the dead will have had to bury the dead.
Consider the implications of climate collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean. Do you actually think it will matter in a few years where the capital of Israel is?
Why should it even be a priority for a new president? It is a waste of precious time and energy.
Do you not see that anyone who intends to settle and live for the next three or four decades in the Eastern Mediterranean is out of his/her mind?
GCP
You are a remarkable sophist. You have been very specific in your disdain for the Deplorables. pl
IZ
that’s a break not a crack. They don’t want to scare people with the reality of how dangerous our infrastructure is.
Ishmael,
Speaking as a software engineer I’m happy to offer a rough time estimate: “Time it would take us to realize we lack the requisite skills” (0, in any unit of time) plus “time it would take to hire competent structural engineers and construction crews” plus “time it would take the engineers to plan the repairs” plus “time it would take the construction crews to do the work”. I realize that this is somewhat conceptual, but I think the important thing to note is the only concrete term is the first and it is 0, so it can be left out. Which means you may as well skip it, avoid drafting the software people and just hire people who can competently do the work. (I admit I did cheat a bit because I left out “time it would take to find software engineers with ‘the proper social justice outlook'”, which is likely infinity).
Was the point of the exercise to point out that software people are so arrogant as to not recognize the importance of people with skills other than software? If so I hope I have offered a counter example. Most of us are quite aware that people with software skills only are completely useless for anything other than ditch-digging once the power goes out. Those of us that aren’t aware of that are generally bound for upper management or the professional conference lecture circuit.
Thank you, LeaNder.
In my opinion the Freiburg display is a reinforcement of the anti-NSDAP narrative that has dominated consideration of Germany since at least 1932. The question I ask is Why — 70+ years after its demise — why do the powers-that-be feel it necessary to constantly administer booster shots to the “Hate Nazis” narrative.
This is Pat Lang’s domain and I was taught better manners than to take advantage of it, so it is with trepidation that I state that I think the narrative that has been enforced on Germans, foremost, and on the rest of the world to a lesser extent, is dangerously incomplete at best, and totally bogus at worst. I rely on historian Thomas Fleming to support my view that the thousands of books and millions of words that have been written and filmed re Hitler & Third Reich are emotion-based and biased, and that the full, objective history has not yet been told or written; it takes fifty years or more to produce that cool, objective state of mind. As we are approaching that point, those who have controlled the emotional narrative thus far will dig in their heels to sustain their dominant position.
I was able to read a number of significant pages from Goldstein’s book on the Amazon site —
and also found a paper by Goldstein that summarizes her work —
PURGES, EXCLUSIONS, AND LIMITS: ART POLICIES IN GERMANY 1933-1949
http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/goldstein.pdf
I first learned of Goldstein through a C Span book discussion — https://www.c-span.org/video/?407603-1/book-discussion-capturing-german-eye
I first encountered the concept “zionism” after reading an April, 2001 bio sketch of Dick Cheney in New Yorker magazine. It mentioned Cheney’s “favorite professor” at Yale, H Bradford Westerfield. I was able to purchase texts by Westerfield, written in the early 1950s; they discussed the power of the zionists and, among other things, judged that one of the advantages “wealthy and zealous zionists” enjoyed in US was that no other group was similarly financed, organized and engaged to counter them.
I come from a Catholic background and my immediate reaction was, “Well, the Church can do that!”
I set out on a quest to see what the Church was — or was not, and why not — doing to “counterbalance” zionist influence in USA.
The results have been dreary; the Church has been sidelined, marginalized, and self-destructing.
Just a few weeks ago I discovered Dr. E. Michael Jones, who has written voluminously and in a pull-no-punches style about how certain elements of the zionist community conduct a pattern of subverting a culture by undermining that culture’s sexual mores. IMO Jones makes a compelling argument, one that offers a key to understanding the Pussy Riot Protest.
How does Jones’ argument relate to Cora Sol Goldstein’s work?
Consider what Riefenstahl’s film, “Triumph of the Will” portrayed, and how it has been condemned at “sinister,” and “chilling.” According to IMDb’s Synopsis of “Triumph,”
“Hitler gives a speech closing the proceedings. This speech, just like all the others documented, have no programs or explanations but are designed to create enthusiasm for a new Germany, united, that can do extraordinary things, that can solve problems and build for a better future, where the ordinary worker is treated with dignity, and all are motivated by patriotic love for the German nation.”
What is “sinister” and “chilling” about “treating ordinary workers with dignity . . .motivated by patriotic love for the German nation?”
On the other hand, Michael Jones describes numerous events and scenarios in which sexually degrading films, books, and events were unleashed upon a people. In particular, he mentions the situation in the 1970s in Germany, when the Bader Meinhof gang was raging. A poll revealed that 60% of young Germans would have offered shelter to Bader Meinhof, if asked. Shortly thereafter, a flood of films was released that portrayed young German women in debased sexual situations; the goal was not ensnare dirty old men in dirty movies but to persuade young German women that sexual laxity was a positive good. “If you undermine the sexual morals of a people, it is easier to dominate and control them” for whatever other purposes you have in mind.
The psychological warfare project that Goldstein described sought to eradicate all traces of Reifenstahl-style unity, “where the ordinary worker is treated with dignity, and all are motivated by patriotic love for the German nation” and to replace it with “brutally and undemocratically imposed” concepts of American-style democracy, capitalism, consumerism, and, above all, modern art — the same modern art that the Third Reich judged to be offensive to German values and replaced with what they thought was more appropriate.
Given that the situation in Weimar Germany was one that included rampant prostitution, pedophilia, and debasement of many kinds, it is my belief that the Third Reich had the right to impose its will on what was going on in their own nation, and that it was and is deeply offensive, even evil, that the Allied occupiers destroyed or removed (as Goldstein described) thousands of items of German art, books, films, etc., and replaced them with what the predominantly Jewish managers of the Allied occupation selected and imposed in their stead.
What is worse is that the same processes were, and continue to be carried out among the American population.
Those same forces, using the same tactics, and with the same agenda, seek to subvert the mores and values of Palestinians, Afghanis, Iraqis, and Iranians, by beaming de-moralizing messages in film, tv, etc. to the young people and young men of those places over which the US seeks to exert hegemony. Michael Jones reported that immediately after the cessation of one of its assaults on Gaza, Israelis beamed pornography into Gaza. Jones claims (others here may know better) that US agencies purvey pornography to Afghanis and Iraqis. –“” …the secret of all domination: to make the dominated participate to their own domination.”
Thanks, Ann
So do you think that POTUS DJT put the CIA on notice that they are ‘consultants’, and NOT policy makers? Former DCI Brennan IMO strutted around looking at himself as a glorified policy maker and not a consultant which is what he was supposed to be.
Now will the new DCS (Director of Clandestine Services) Pompeo act like a consultant or will he think his britches are bigger than they really are? If he does, then POTUS DJT IMO will matter of fact in his New Yorker way show the DCS how the land lays.
Colonel,
IMO the reason POTUS DJT is having so much image problem is that the rest of the nation doesn’t really understand New Yorkers (NYC) not the rest of the state, is that they are straight forward, straight to the point, and pull no punches. That is what I encountered and found refreshing when I was living in that area once upon a mule.
Lars, it amazes me how so many who didn’t attend any of the marches seem to believe they know exactly how and why they came about and people like you and I and others who attended are at best ignored but usually ridiculed. You are correct in saying that at some point we will be listened to. Would Trump call out the police or National Guard against peaceful women, who knows?
Madonna is still a US citizen. Tina Turner gave up citizenship and has been living in Francr for many years. Not that the two could ever be confused. I much prefer Tina however.
Most of your suggestions I agree with entirely. On term limits, I think that they ought to be combined with a minimum entry age qualification (my own starting point for politicians holding elective office would be 40 years old) plus the requirement that in the five years prior to election no connection (very loosely defined) be had with politics, think tanks or foreign owned corporations.
Sam Peralta said in reply to MRW…
“Furthermore, where are the Assets?”
Spent.Consumed.Gone.Kaput!
Wrong. We do not have a communist government. The federal government does not own The People’s assets. The US federal government provisions itself for the benefit of the people, albeit in previous admins, poorly because The People don’t know what they are entitled to demand of their congressmen: roads, telecommunications, education, healthcare, new jobs, etcetera, in addition to paying for all federal buildings, maintenance, utilities, salaries, national parks, and everything that is federal in nature.
But, guys like you keep selling snake-oil that infinite government spending will lead to economic nirvana.
Federal taxes do not pay for anything. A little less than one-quarter of federal government taxes collected in 2016 were spent on the military. The total federal taxes collected in 2016 were $2.8 trillion. See TABLE IV of the federal government’s checkbook for the end of fiscal year 2016 page 2 of 2: https://www.fms.treas.gov/fmsweb/viewDTSFiles?dir=a&fname=16093000.pdf
If you believe the rest–in 2016, that amounts to approx. $2.2 trillion–pays for everything I have a bridge to sell you.
Here is the golden rule:
If the economy is ice cold:
Cut taxes. Increase federal spending.
If the economy is red hot:
Increase taxes. Cut spending.
The US federal government creates its own dollar, Sam. Stop and think about that for a moment. If I am a federal government and my currency is marbles and only I have the monopoly right globally to create them, why on earth would I need to borrow marbles from the people, businesses, or state and local governments when I am the sole supplier? You’re not using your noggin.
But even then, Government accounting was and is different.
Exactly. Federal government, only. State and local governments must earn income, just like you and I.
exactly what surety is there behind them — the “full faith and credit” of the same government that issued them ?
Absolutely.
What if that government fails?
Can you name one time when a US federal government check has failed since 1791? Or more to the point, since we went off the gold standard domestically in 1933? The United States federal government can pay all debts denominated in USD. Period. And since August 15, 1971–thank you, Nixon–we can pay all international debts denominated in USD, especially when we are the reserve currency. Why do you think other countries sell us stuff? They want USD; they need USD to buy oil, for example, or they have to use their treasuries to convert their available cash to USD to buy it. That’s why our trade deficit is so high. We are supplying the rest of the world with liquidity.
The Chinese have sold hundreds of billions of Treasuries in recent months.
So what? Their prerogative. When Walmart and Best Buy bought billions in product from China, Walmart and Best Buy sent their payments to China’s checking account at the Fed in New York per our national payment system rules. China could have exchanged them for Yuan immediately and wired the money home, or, as you say, buy US goods, stocks or real estate. Instead, China decided to retain the USD and earn interest: ergo, transfer the USD to their Fed savings account and direct the Fed to buy treasury securities so China could earn interest.
Maybe the Fed or a pension fund or a TBTF bank purchased it. These are just financial transactions.
Correct. And the money remains within the USA.
The Chinese now own the Waldorf Astoria.
I wouldn’t have allowed it. That’s a political decision. I don’t think China should be allowed to buy our iconic jewels or national resources, but that’s just me.
Babak,
Diminish the size of Finance Capital; freeing capital for manufacturing and services.
Agree. But that’s called Industrial Capitalism, and since 1980, we’ve developed Finance Capitalism, giving the power to shareholders and upper management of companies, not the employees, The People. Robbing them blind, imo.
It was John Shad, head of the SEC under Reagan, who created stock buybacks, and fucking screwed the American worker, and the middle class. There was absolutely no incentive to spend money on R&D and develop new markets. Read this and you can use Google on John Shad to get more on it. I can’t write a treatise right now. Read this:
http://www.dark-bid.com/SEC-engineered-every-stock-market-bubble-since-1982.html
Until these stock buybacks are reversed, nothing will change.
Bismarck was brilliant.
Extremely OT, Colonel.
You might be interested in this week’s interview with Stephen Cohen on the John Batchelor Show:
https://audioboom.com/posts/5532264-kremlin-baiting-trump-what-is-the-risk-stephen-f-cohen-nyu-princeton-university-eastwestaccord-com
How is she humiliating your son, by being more successful than him?
Waldorf Astoria as an iconic US jewel?
You must be jesting.
The Old Port Authority building fitted that designation much more; having been built by legendary industrial titan of US.
Thanks, I will read when I get a chance.
But I have been living it…
jayinbmore,
re: “Those of us that aren’t aware of that are generally bound for upper management or the professional conference lecture circuit.”
Thanks for an enlightened response. Back in the day, we used to call (old style) engineering D^3: Difficult, Dirty, Dangerous. In these days, given the attitude of the elites worldwide, it is D^4: Difficult, Dirty, Dangerous work for Deplorables.
Ishmael Zechariah
Babak,
I’m not jesting.
The Waldorf Astoria is the tacit official residence of the President when he’s in NYC*, and it’s the traditional official residence of the US Ambassador to the UN. For decades. Not the hotel portion, but the Waldorf Astoria Towers, whose entrance is on 50th, around the corner off Park. All part of the the same Waldorf Astoria complex that the Chinese now control.
It’s a matter of National Security imo. The use of the Waldorf Astoria was strategic, according to a security detail who explained it to me years ago when Clinton was blocking Manhattan. The Port Authority Building had none of these.
____________________________
SECURITY REASONS
* Best rooftop heliport in Manhattan a few blocks away on top of old Pan Am Building
* One direction of Park Avenue can be blocked off for fast egress with median control for Secret Service
* 50th St. one-way east to Eastside Highway equidistant from tunnels out of town
* Clear sniper lines from office buildings nearby to protect President
All
I used to stay at the Waldorf Towers quite a lot. Very nice. If you get off the elevator on the 2nd floor you can walk over into the Waldorf Astoria proper. pl
Ishmael,
Elite failure with regards to the economic consequences of the evolution of the “New Economy” on the real economy is indeed a topic that warrants a great deal of further discussion. I look forward to the opportunity to carry on at a later date.
Thanks, I will read when I get a chance.
It’s super brief, Babak. Just skim it. Salient part in the middle. One paragraph.