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Hate is the coin of the realm in Trumpland. Why would the chest-beating alpha male, who seeks only to sow distrust and division amongst his castrated subjects, denounce his most effective weapon? On the contrary, he relishes the fruition of his life's work and basks in the turmoil and despair of emasculated fools, who have surrendered their power and kneel before His Great Egoness in cowardly subservience. Drink out of the Fux News spittoon and you too can drop your gonads like Sean Hannity and join the neutered herds of baying cattle being led to the slaughter by this cartoon king with a fake, 1950's-greaser, flaxen hairdo and an orange, spray-on tan.
ErinRose: "Bread and circus" (pizza and football). Isn't that what kept ancient Rome's population in line for a time? Too bad this species is cursed with such a short memory.
Ever since Obama won the 2008 election, the racists and hate mongers have become more and more vocal; and this in turn has brought out the closeted racists and hate mongers who have also become more and more vocal; and now, with Trump in the White House, spewing racism and hateful ideas is becoming increasingly popular and, sadly, acceptable.
Note, and let me be very clear about this: I do NOT blame Obama for the hateful seed that has sprouted; I only blame his election victory. Obama's victory germinated the seed that has always been there; and now Trump, and his ilk, water and fertilize it with their s&*t.
And the rest of us are in deep doo-doo.
chuckle8: Thanks for the followup. I've long suspected there are some heavyweight thinkers lurking on Thom's blog. I count you and deepspace among them (and not necessarily myself, though I try to blurt out my little contributions).
On a personal note, my own background is also engineering (in my case electronic) and it's only been in fairly recent years, since my retirement, that I've turned my attention toward politics (and anthropology and history and sociology), which is to say, I'm a relative novice but feel, as you seem to also, that life continues to be a learning experience. These are areas I sorely neglected in my many years of being involved with a fascinating career and, of course, chasing the almighty buck. And FYI, I'll be 74 in a couple of months.
The whole vocubulary we all throw around begs for some kind of "standardization" so that we might understand our relative positions. For example, the terms "liberal" and "progressive". To me, a "liberal" is someone that embraces great humanitarian causes, even if in cases they are practically unobtainable. Still, the spirit, that sentiment is praiseworthy. A "progressive" on the other hand is a little more pragmatic but trending in the "right" direction, both socially and economically. Sanders in my mind (and by my definition) is a "progressive". And while on the subject, I didn't know this but in a book I recently read ("Global Capitalism and the crisis of Democracy" by Jerry Harris, the Term "liberal" was originally coined to describe a system or individual that embraced the liberal treatment of capital within the free market system (a far cry from today's definition). So we all should define our terms before launching a position.
Thank you, chuckle8, for your hanging in here:-)
I see Trump as a spoiler. He's here to shake things up and wake the country up. By the time he finishes up, this country should be so far down on its knees that no American who is warm and breathing will be able to deny that all of this NWO bunk is unacceptable. As it stands, only a fraction of our 320 million people have a clue as to what is going on. The fact that there are still staunch sHillary supporters should tell us that. It's going to have to get really bad for people to engage. Otherwise, the beer, the TV, and the sports will get top priority.
I don't believe the message that was posted on Twitter was written by Trump himself; more ikely it was conceived and produced by a staff member with a conscience. Trump has created a climate in which it is perfectly acceptable to act violently toward anything or anyone that displeases you. The incident in Portland is one example, another is the Montana congressman who body-slammed a reporter for asking a perfectly legitimate question. Trump's comment? "A great win in Montana." Unbelievable!
Corbyn is absolutely correct in this very, very brief statement. Unfortunately, the statement completely lacks in substance, though this is typical of our modern, soundbyte obsessed media and political leadership. While I agree that admitting that we have a problem is the first step, we've essentially been forced to choose between two horrible solutions to the problem: continue bombing and supplying weapons to "our side", or witdrawl, and let the chips fall where they may, all the while throwing money at NGOs in hopes that they can alleviate some of the suffering. This isn't necessarily a right vs. left paradigm, this is a real issue that neither side has provided a good answer to. We've relied on half-measures out of political expediency for far too long.
Outback: Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems I've seen extreme right wing comments posted by a "Diane" on this blog, hard to keep track....I move around a lot online.
There will never be a better time to push for single payer. The specter of Teapublican "for profit health insurance" going on steroids has become a national trauma. I've attended the town halls and almost everyone is truly pissed. Trump/Ryan and the Tea-servatives have way overreached on this and it's time to pounce on them with single payer. This alone will wake up even the most foxmerized.
Violence begets violence, "... for all who draw the sword will die by the sword."
We the Evil Empire, with our hideous military-industrial complex spiderwebbing the entire globe on every continent and everywhere in between, inject our poisonous venom into over 70 vassal nations from over 800 fixed military bases and squander over 200 billion a year in blood money. Our euphemistic "force projection" is in reality an idolized culture of violence and greed on an unimaginable scale, the worst blight in all of humankind's brutal history, an uncontrollable fanged demon of truly monstrous proportion that devours everything in its path, slaughtering millions along the way.
Yet, our subliminal messaging monitors, from big screens to handheld devices, have convinced us that to feed the beast is our patriotic duty. We have descended so far into madness that we even believe it is our religious duty. The gluttonous five percent of the world's population who glibly consume 25 percent of the world's scarce resources, while 800 million souls suffer advanced stages of starvation and three billion -- half the planet! -- languish in poverty and disease, is that repugnant notion of "American exceptionalism" we loudly celebrate, that lasting legacy of the "ugly American" we proudly embrace.
Our glorified heroes wear bemedaled uniforms and wield fierce weapons of death and destruction; our slick politicians wear thousand-dollar suits and lie, cheat, and steal; our most galling enemies are those of conscience who dare to speak out and fight back.
We have met the terrorists, and they are us.
Poland has a strict no immigration policy and surprise surprise no terriorist attacks.
I think the war on terror and the war on drugs have been smashing successes... for those whom it was designed to profit. War makes money; we all know this.
America has intentionally forced Afghanistan back onto their poppy economy by bombing the heck out of the place after the Afghans had struggled to get themselves off of a poppy economy. But too many people in our government and the Deep State are invested in poppy derivatives that are making them fortunes. It suits them to have Americans addicted so they can pour billions into war-on-drug programs that they know are destined to fail because they themselves have their thumbs on the scales that are ramping up poppy production in Afghanistan and distribution elsewhere.
Same holds true for the war on terrorism. It is a well known fact that shoving a stick into a hornets' nest will only make the hornets angry and launch them into an attack mode when their home has been invaded and violated. But it suits DC, the Shadow Government, and the multi-national industrialists who make the ordinances and other things that supply the various branches of the armed services to continue to perpetrate this charade so that they may pursue imperialism unabated.
It won't be until We the People, change the political landscape, stymie the monied puppeteers behind the scenes, and demand our country gets away from being conscienceless profit protagonists will things get better.
The root cause of this violence is the stubborn resistance, on the part of most of the world's religious leaders, to the suggestion that all the world's major religions are equally valid in nature and origin. Until this fundamental suggestion is accepted and actively propagated by the world's religious leaders, religiously-motivated violence will continue.
We now accept that no one nation, no one race and no one language is inherently superior to all the others. Decades of interfaith and multi-faith syposia and dialogue have convinced those relative few who have participated over a long period of time that, likewise, no one religion is inherently superior to the others, or has exclusive access to fundamental religious truth. It's time that religious leaders in their generality come to accept and teach this.
Corbyn is absolutely right. The approach so heartily embraced by Trump will only create more terrorists.
The killing of innocent children and adults in the Manchester Arena bombing is tragic and inexcusable. But how many children and innocent civilians are killed every day in US air strikes and drone attacks, and as the result of conflict deliberately fomented and supported by the US? Somehow, those children and innocents don't count. They are just 'unfortunate, unavoidable collateral damage'. Who puts their faces in the media and laments their passing?
Martin Luther King said "a riot is the language of the unheard". So what does that make terrorism?
Imagine if the US spend a significant proportion of its so-called defense budget on humanitarian aid and development, instead of "only getting better, better and better" at military might (as one defense spokesperson put it in a press conference recently).
In this sense, Angela Merkel is also right: Spending on aid and development is also a means of curbing terror. And a better one than bombs and bullets.
(Please note: I do not deny the right to self-defense. But so much conflict has more to do with 'the national interest'.)
The war on terror has been going on for thousands of years in the Middle East It only hit our shores recently when immigrants from the Middle East started coming to our part of the world and it started to threaten their way of life over there. Freedom is a scary thing in the Middle East. Kings don't survive in countries with freedom.
I've heard so much about this blank ATM card but doubted if it was real due to numerous comments all over the internet which makes it difficult to know the REAL hackers. I decided to go on the internet then i read so many testimony of Ghost Hacking Foundation on how they've helped so many people with the blank ATM card though i was curious, but i realized that giving a try would not also hurt. I contacted this ghost Hacker & they instructed me on what to do and how much i need to pay for the card to get to me & i did and waited for the card to be delivered, i was nervous if they had ran away with my money but to my greatest surprise i received an email which was my tracking number to my shipped card and for the past two days now i have withdrawn $10,000,00. If you need an ATM card contact ATM, send an email to: ghosthackingfoundation.hk@gmail.com
I've heard so much about this blank ATM card but doubted if it was real due to numerous comments all over the internet which makes it difficult to know the REAL hackers. I decided to go on the internet then i read so many testimony of Ghost Hacking Foundation on how they've helped so many people with the blank ATM card though i was curious, but i realized that giving a try would not also hurt. I contacted this ghost Hacker & they instructed me on what to do and how much i need to pay for the card to get to me & i did and waited for the card to be delivered, i was nervous if they had ran away with my money but to my greatest surprise i received an email which was my tracking number to my shipped card and for the past two days now i have withdrawn $10,000,00. If you need an ATM card contact ATM, send an email to: ghosthackingfoundation.hk@gmail.com
I've heard so much about this blank ATM card but doubted if it was real due to numerous comments all over the internet which makes it difficult to know the REAL hackers. I decided to go on the internet then i read so many testimony of Ghost Hacking Foundation on how they've helped so many people with the blank ATM card though i was curious, but i realized that giving a try would not also hurt. I contacted this ghost Hacker & they instructed me on what to do and how much i need to pay for the card to get to me & i did and waited for the card to be delivered, i was nervous if they had ran away with my money but to my greatest surprise i received an email which was my tracking number to my shipped card and for the past two days now i have withdrawn $10,000,00. If you need an ATM card contact ATM, send an email to: ghosthackingfoundation.hk@gmail.com
Well, 2950, you may recall Mr. Obama ran strongly on single payer, and he was on the Dem ticket. Do you recall his promise to get all the big players around a large table with a live CNN feed and ask them why we couldn't come up with it? Bernie was for single payer and was snuffed by the machine. I don't think single payer by iteself will carry the day. I think it's going to take an absolute crash of the existing system, which is well down the road, to lead to that obvious conclusion, regardless of the party in power. (I take it you aren't calling for comment by Dianne Feinstein;-)
The war on terror has become an endless money machine for the Fascists, so don't expect a sincere push for anything other than prolonged military action. The military industrial spy complex will never allow a peaceful resolution. Trump's political suicide budget backs me up on this statement.
Speaking of the war on terror, single payer is the smarter way to reduce/end the terror threat from those who nurture "for profit health insurance."
Single payer as a campaign promise is more than enough to put a third party in power right now. I still don't hear much more than a weak peep from the Dems on it.
BTW: I wonder how it feels to be a member of the political party Putin picked to destroy our country with????..Diane????
The US is by far the largest "terrorist organization" seen since the Third Reich. Even before that, we were "kicking ass and taking land". I believe that a great first step would be to cut our military budget in half, spend the nearly half trillion per year saved in part on beefing up our educational system so that the electorate might hopefully (before it's too late) be able to see through the reality show bullshit we systematically tumble to these days. Ike spoke to the last generation capable of any degree of "critical thought". Unfortunately, his words have fallen on dumb ears.
I voted, Yes, but I hope not. He is the best insurance that Democrats will take over the government for years to come. CT
The "war on terrorism" was created by an american president for reasons best known to himself and those who influenced him
These thugs should not be graced as terrorists... what is their cause?
They are CRIMINALS pure and simple
It would nice if one could remember or search out their demands or grievances. I know I'm too lazy and not being paid. OML had a list of 10 or more grievances. The only one I can remember is he didn't want us to take their natural resources from their land for pennies on the dollars (like oil).
Yes we do, right now our war on terrorism is doing about as much good as the war on drugs. Also it is creating even more terrorists. Somehow we need to find a way to stop doing what terrorist's grievances are that cause them to become terrorists in the first place. Answering their demands isn't it. Getting to the root of the problem much closer to the targert. From what I can see this would take a 180 dergee turn from what the US acts and treart other nations, but this might be impossilbe sadly. The US, like many countries to currtall free speach, they throw the net out far and wide to cover whoever they decide is a terrorists these days.