https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcklUUIsdcw
QuoteDonald Trump sought to tout his support among African-Americans on Friday by pointing out a black man in the crowd and calling him "my African-American."
"Oh, look at my African-American over here. Look at him," Trump said. "Are you the greatest?"
The remark didn't generate a noticeable response from Trump's audience.
QuoteTrump's remark came as he recalled an incident in March when a black supporter of his assaulted a protester at a rally in Arizona as he was being escorted out of the building by police.
The comment also comes as Trump is under fire for calling on the federal judge presiding over one of the lawsuits against Trump University to recuse himself because of his Mexican heritage.
(the judge was born in Indiana, btw)
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/03/politics/donald-trump-african-american/index.html
This is too perfect. It's like a schadenfreude buffet.
Like a python, Trump simply just unhinges his jaw when he sticks his foot so far into his mouth that he's dipping his toes into his colon so no one will notice.
Quote from: TomFoolery on June 04, 2016, 01:27:16 PM
Like a python, Trump simply just unhinges his jaw when he sticks his foot so far into his mouth that he's dipping his toes into his colon so no one will notice.
I don't see how one can construct such a consistent cartoon character without some forethought. I still think Trump may be getting his kicks. He may even be intentionally destroying the Republican party. He's certainly giving those closet bigots a voice. Now we have a better idea of who they are in our communities. We have a chance for real discourse with them now that they've spoken up.
Pythons don't have feet.
He applies the same huckster BS to everything; "Art of the Deal" was a best seller. And magnanimously either blows off or attacks anyone that criticizes him.
He is American to the core (apologies to any Canadians on the forum).
Quote from: stromboli on June 04, 2016, 02:50:58 PMHe is American to the core (apologies to any Canadians on the forum).
No offense taken. I'm Canadian in the same way that the Indiana judge is Mexican. :P
Folks, Americans are so sick of republicans and democrats that they are quite willing to stab themselves to attempt to find a way away from the two parties that have fucked up this country for many years. This guys scares the bejesus out of both parties. Frankly I am more and more leaning his way simply because it is the only way to get away from our bought and paid for corrupt government.
Slightly related... my friend saw a girl get pelted with eggs when she was just walking with a "Trump" shirt on... And Trump supporters are supposed to be the nasty ones...
Quote from: PickelledEggs on June 04, 2016, 11:41:39 PM
Slightly related... my friend saw a girl get pelted with eggs when she was just walking with a "Trump" shirt on... And Trump supporters are supposed to be the nasty ones...
Hey, hate begats hate. That's like... in the Bible or something. Right next to "an eye for an eye" and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Quote from: TomFoolery on June 04, 2016, 11:51:14 PM
Hey, hate begats hate. That's like... in the Bible or something. Right next to "an eye for an eye" and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."
Maybe so, but somewhere along the line, the cycle needs to be severed.
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Quote from: PickelledEggs on June 04, 2016, 11:52:31 PM
Maybe so, but somewhere along the line, the cycle needs to be severed.
I don't disagree. I'm just making a cynical observation of the human condition.
Put all the Rs and Ds in a box together ... and don't let them out ;-)
Quote from: TomFoolery on June 05, 2016, 12:32:08 AM
I don't disagree.
I know
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Quote from: aitm on June 04, 2016, 08:17:25 PM
Folks, Americans are so sick of republicans and democrats that they are quite willing to stab themselves to attempt to find a way away from the two parties that have fucked up this country for many years. This guys scares the bejesus out of both parties. Frankly I am more and more leaning his way simply because it is the only way to get away from our bought and paid for corrupt government.
Like every other politician, if Tump wins, he'll turn into the mainstream politics the chair requires and yes he'll make an ass of himself occassionally acting like the racist thug he is...etc., but things will go on prety much the same.
Even he was to try to make fundamental changes who would that affect? Minorities, nonwhite people, lgbtqa groups and women. The big majority of the society already thinks these movements and groups are the biggest problem in the country because they are some regressive 'left'.
The group that is supposed to be against Trump and his voiced policies is the group who agrees with Trump on many levels but sees him racists, sexist and backwards because he is batting for the religious side, while they see themselves entitled to the same politics in their own terms because they are seculars. The manners are different, not the policies or undrestanding of politics and the policies. I don't mean the latter group is homogenous or necessarily bear this abhorrent traits. That's not the cause. It is anger and fear.
Trump winning the presidency would not make much difference and nothing would change with the government. As long as this system stands doesn't really matter much who will sit in the White House. And that should be thought as the real problem.
The ideal of the US Constitution is that there is a non-violent revolution every 2, 4 or 6 years, with the steadying hand of the SCOTUS and competing interests of the States keeping things in bounds. But that ideal was never achieved. The mechanism to avoid violence in a world of competing interests, is itself something to be fought over, and status quo fights change, because either way, someone's ox is being gored. It already failed once, in the run-up to the US Civil War. It is failing again now that the WW II bonus has run dry. All systems fail, because they are rigidity imposed over the reality of a dynamic society that inevitably colors outside the lines. Its predecessor was in places like Ionia ... where you had federations of colonial Greek municipalities. Today most of those are gone and forgotten, with the exception of Smyrna. You live right in the middle of where that colonization happened, but it was swallowed up by larger realities (Lydia, Persia, Alexander, Pergamon, Rome). The US founding fathers were aware of Greek and Roman history in detail, many of them classically educated. It is apparent that the US has from WW I forward, devolved from republic into empire, our outlying dependencies restive like the subject cities of the Athenian thessalocracy, with competing ideas, jealous or ambitious insiders and outsiders, Spartan and Persian, undermining constantly. Both the citizens and barbarians remain restless, Heraclitus of Ephesus having the last word.
(I don't think it is a healthy approach to make the comparison, Baruch. Before French Rev. there were no standards or centralisation in terms of the modern state or law or nothing generally with the syatem.)
What I don't understand about the idea that 'Trump winning presidency could be a good thing over all' is how does that work in practice in getting rid of the corrupt government?
People expect a massive rise up? Under what conditions there could be massive social explosions in the US? See, before the modern state and roughly modernism people rose up, because at some point it became virtually impossible to survive for the masses. This doesn't go for the modern societies anywhere, let alone the US.
What will unite people in a country that size and diversity?
Let's say it happened. Something really big. the body count and the damage would be horrifiying. :sad2: Hundreds, thousands could be dead if it gets out of and it almost always does. Most people are armed. And trust me extreme right religious nuts will be waiting for this. Besides, again how does it work? If there was a massive rise up the government will abolish itself just like that?
I don't get it at all.
Trump can apparently say or do or endorse anything. Anything at all. We are so polarized that it doesn't fucking matter. People are still going to vote for him. A lot of people.
He could call people spooks and gooks and wetbacks and dot-heads and bitches. It just doesn't matter. There is something teflon about him that I will never really understand as long as I live and breathe.
Are any of you old enough to remember Watt (secretary of the interior) saying "A woman, a black, two Jews and a cripple" and being completely vilified for it? Trump is so, so SO much worse, and it doesn't seem to matter.
Quote from: PickelledEggs on June 04, 2016, 11:52:31 PM
Maybe so, but somewhere along the line, the cycle needs to be severed.
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The key word--needs--is right. The cycle does need to be severed. But if the crowd he is pandering to likes it, who will stop the cycle? Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco preached a similar form of nationalism, and those cycles needed to be stopped. Will it take a war to stop this current cycle? Trump is espousing a brand of that same thing--National Socialism (which is the exact opposite of communism or pure socialism) appeals to the racist, corporate driven, frightened part of our society that Trump is thriving in. In that world he can do no wrong, say nothing wrong. I am hoping that in the glare of a national campaign much of this will come to light. But will it matter? Will the SFA's (stupid fucking american) be so large they will carry the day??????
Quote from: Mermaid on June 05, 2016, 08:50:09 AMTrump can apparently say or do or endorse anything. Anything at all. We are so polarized that it doesn't fucking matter. People are still going to vote for him. A lot of people.
He could call people spooks and gooks and wetbacks and dot-heads and bitches. It just doesn't matter. There is something teflon about him that I will never really understand as long as I live and breathe.
Precisely my thoughts when I posted it. The kind of stuff Trump does in an average week would torpedo any Democratic candidate's campaign and the campaigns of most of the Republicans. Yet even hearing about this stuff, he still has people lining up to vote for him. What does it take to dissuade these people?
"I don't get it at all." ... you aren't from this culture, and as US posters have written, we don't get it either. Not that it is bad to be European.
But let my give you a current time hypothesis, no Greeks or Romans ;-)
The American people are fed up, and they don't know how to more forward. Usually someone rises us to act as a catalyst. FDR, Ike, JFK, Reagan were catalysts. They acted as lightning rods to articulate the public will, for good or ill. The public will is inarticulate and chaotic otherwise. This is per Leviathan by Hobbes, so I hope that isn't too ancient. His model was an absolute monarchy rather than a republican tyranny. So the US needs a Hitler or Stalin to get it organized, because the status quo has stopped working. Apparently Turkey needs an Erdogan to get it organized. To me it is a miracle, if the catalyst is not psychopathic, and misleads the public. In theory, elections should be able to accomplish this without a strongman ... but our elections are less and less effective. Personally, I expect a Latin-American style breakdown into a authoritarian military dictatorship, a suspension of elections, in the US.
It is easier for me to see this development of American political culture over the last 50 years.
On Democrats ... they simply don't get it either ... they have been hated for decades, since FDR's first election. Maybe since Wilson's first election. They were hated for being on the wrong side of the US Civil War. They were hated for intervening in WW I and WW II. They were hated for FDR's socialism. They were hated for Truman's support of Korea and Nato. JFK was hated for appeasing the Soviet Union (I think he was rational) and being a womanizer. Johnson was hated for his socialism and Vietnam. Carter was hated for his appeasement of the Soviet Union. Clinton was hated for his socialism and womanizing. Obama is hated for being black (but he is as Republican as Shrub .. as is Hillary). Trump is like Huey Long ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
Trump seems to have borrowed from the current America First Party, which was pretty much ignored in the 2002 election ... perhaps melding into the Tea Party movement ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(2002) ... and this trails back to the ant-FDR movement, anti-involvment in European conflict, the failed canvasing for Gen MacArthur (there is the potential military dictator and prototype for the character played by Burt Lancaster in Seven Days In May) ... and the more extreme aspects of 1950s Right Wing politics ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May
Quote from: Baruch on June 05, 2016, 01:23:05 PM
The American people are fed up, and they don't know how to more forward. Usually someone rises us to act as a catalyst.
I'm not fed up at all. I am very fond of our current administration and was fond of the Clinton administration, too.
Quote from: Mermaid on June 05, 2016, 01:44:30 PM
I'm not fed up at all. I am very fond of our current administration and was fond of the Clinton administration, too.
Spoken like a true FDR Democrat ;-) It only takes about 25% extreme opposition though, to grind things to a halt. There are very few if any true Republicans for example, in office or running for office. If there were, I would have no problem voting for them. Almost all of them today are former S Democrats ... the original pre-FDR Democrat.
Quote from: Baruch on June 05, 2016, 01:47:44 PM
There are very few if any true Republicans for example, in office or running for office. If there were, I would have no problem voting for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_States
Quoteexpects citizens to be independent in their performance of civic duties
If there is law enforcement, what does that mean? Is business done on the honor system?
We're coming around to knowing what it takes for the Earth to thrive. Would have been nice to have a government consensus, but we'll get it.
Quote from: Baruch on June 05, 2016, 01:23:05 PM
"I don't get it at all." ... you aren't from this culture, and as US posters have written, we don't get it either. Not that it is bad to be European.
But let my give you a current time hypothesis, no Greeks or Romans ;-)
The American people are fed up, and they don't know how to more forward. Usually someone rises us to act as a catalyst. FDR, Ike, JFK, Reagan were catalysts. They acted as lightning rods to articulate the public will, for good or ill. The public will is inarticulate and chaotic otherwise. This is per Leviathan by Hobbes, so I hope that isn't too ancient. His model was an absolute monarchy rather than a republican tyranny. So the US needs a Hitler or Stalin to get it organized, because the status quo has stopped working. Apparently Turkey needs an Erdogan to get it organized. To me it is a miracle, if the catalyst is not psychopathic, and misleads the public. In theory, elections should be able to accomplish this without a strongman ... but our elections are less and less effective. Personally, I expect a Latin-American style breakdown into a authoritarian military dictatorship, a suspension of elections, in the US.
It is easier for me to see this development of American political culture over the last 50 years.
On Democrats ... they simply don't get it either ... they have been hated for decades, since FDR's first election. Maybe since Wilson's first election. They were hated for being on the wrong side of the US Civil War. They were hated for intervening in WW I and WW II. They were hated for FDR's socialism. They were hated for Truman's support of Korea and Nato. JFK was hated for appeasing the Soviet Union (I think he was rational) and being a womanizer. Johnson was hated for his socialism and Vietnam. Carter was hated for his appeasement of the Soviet Union. Clinton was hated for his socialism and womanizing. Obama is hated for being black (but he is as Republican as Shrub .. as is Hillary). Trump is like Huey Long ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long
Trump seems to have borrowed from the current America First Party, which was pretty much ignored in the 2002 election ... perhaps melding into the Tea Party movement ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Party_(2002) ... and this trails back to the ant-FDR movement, anti-involvment in European conflict, the failed canvasing for Gen MacArthur (there is the potential military dictator and prototype for the character played by Burt Lancaster in Seven Days In May) ... and the more extreme aspects of 1950s Right Wing politics ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May
OK what you are telling in the first paragraph makes sense somehow. Of course I don't see it as you do.
However, everything you are describing up there is fundamentally tied up to the same things which are only more powerful today and added on top of each other. Interventions, war industry, economical growth, development of classes, middle class fading away...the sides of the civil war etc... You just had that Bush creature a decade ago and world got fubar. What did that change? Nothing.
Now, what I am asking is, without changing the sytem itself altogether -which is right away an impossibility imo- how is it Trump winning could be helpful? Baruch, politics aside, masses; societies do not work the way you describe because they have a fish memory. What I am saying is Trump winning presidency wouldn't change a thing in the US.
:arrow: You are almost saying there would be some sort of a 'coup' if Trump wins, so things would be smacked back down and cleaned. Like flushing down the toilet after the shit. How do you think something like this could happen in the US is beyond me. (May be I got it wrong. Did I get it wrong?)
If things are that bad. If something like that happens, get ready for a 'out in the streets civil war watch the flames from Canada' kind of thing. That's absolutely horrifying, we would get affected here very badly. I don't even want to think about the ME and the neighbourhood. I am not kidding. I'm skipping the life loss and damage, the domestic unrest in the US. Imagine what would happen to the stock market.
I don't know, sounds too much of a horror fantasy to me. Probably I'm missing something. I still don't get the idea.
Quote from: Baruch on June 05, 2016, 01:24:46 AM
Put all the Rs and Ds in a box together ... and don't let them out ;-)
You neglected to throw in the edged weapons and let nature take its course. :letsparty:
Pardon my repeating this; Chump and Billary are opposite sides of the same shit covered coin. It can't be picked up with out getting shit on your fingers. Billary is THE SYSTEM who's sold influence and favors to special interests for decades, and Chump is THE SPECIAL INTEREST who's purchased influence and favors from the system for decades.
I'll repeat this too; Polarization? Either Billary and Chump could throw live babies into a blazing oven on stage, and all you'd hear from their supporters is: It doesn't matter, I don't care.
Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result than the last time.
Johnson & Weld in '16!
Quote from: gentle_dissident on June 05, 2016, 02:49:06 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_StatesIf there is law enforcement, what does that mean? Is business done on the honor system?
We're coming around to knowing what it takes for the Earth to thrive. Would have been nice to have a government consensus, but we'll get it.
Conflict is natural, why do you go all Gandhi? But wasn't Gandhi anti-British? And there is no honor is business or politics, they are inseparable.
Drunkenshoe ... you are still speaking to your own post (which was a good one), you aren't really speaking to me. As long as there is a system, then true change can't happen, just rearranging the deck chairs. I don't know what inconsequential (in the big picture) changes either candidate can take responsibility for (the President has limited power). But those changes on the small scale are important to one person or another. The way that health care was modified by Obama is directly offensive to my interests, but helpful for others (though not as much as people think).
I can't predict the future, other than history will repeat. There could be civil unrest in the US ... hence the likelihood of a military coup to restore order. There could be nuclear war. But I personally don't concentrate on the worst case ... just something more likely ... like a bank holiday like they had in Cyprus or an austerity like they have in Greece. For me, in most cases, I am not bothered by Latin American immigrants. But the European refugee situation, and Turkey as a safety valve ... is a whole different thing. The usual politician behavior, is to take credit for when the sun comes up.
And the coup could happen under a D or an R. The Ds are getting as restless as the Rs ... they are the same people ultimately, even if they hate each other with an irrational passion. I prefer to be a passion fruit ;-)
And I hope for peace, even if violent catharsis is necessary ... because some hair will get mussed ... as the AF general played by George C Scott in Dr Strangelove, blew off the idea of major nuclear conflict. It was that acting that got him the role as Patton. The breakdown of the USSR was less bad than it could have been ... I hope for the same when the US comes to the end of its arrogance.
That wasn't my intention, sorry. I was trying to stick to 'the question', so I wouldn't get lost.
Baruch, let me reduce this to the basics of sociology and go from there to explain what I think. Base and superstructure.
Take the simple dictionary definitions available. Base is the production of everything exists in a society from people to their relationships and roles, from resources to any kind of material and the forces make these happpen. Superstructure is the all other aspects of a society from culture to ideology; ideas, world views, values, beliefs, identities..etc and social instutions; education, religion, media, political structure and the STATE. These are constantly changing, shifting, evolving and they are created by pople. they do not occur by themselves. As uncle Karl informs us "suprestructure grows out rom the base and that it reflects the interests of the ruling class that controls the base". This class was 'bourgeoisie' when he said all this and we roughly call this today 'the middle class'.
Now, please picture the middle class in the US in a background of what makes the base in the US and with that how the superstructure evolved in time. You drew a picture of this up there, however the reason I say jumping through ages or around 2oth century is not a good comparison, because on the screen there are two virtual superstructures -which is just a delusion imo- but one base and without changing that base there is no change WITH or WITHOUT violence, civil war or a coup.
I'm not trying to predict anything. I'm just trying to think.
The kind of civil unrest in power that could trigger a change in the US and in return causing a military coup simply means federal state intervening to stop a civil war-riot in streets that disrupted the life. (Which could also turn into domestic terrorism.) And only if it spreads all over the country. Ortherwise a military coup is NOT doable in the US. It's not doable today in many other countries with far less power in the world with a less likely to oppose and unarmed demographic without any 2nd amendment nonsense. For many reasons from a possible little size of civil war to the fact that a coup goes back a country at least 20 years at least.
So doesn't matter which scenario goes -I'll skip the nuclear war of course, because well because there wouldn't be anything left much to talk about-
-I don't believe the civil unrest ever be in scale of triggering such an intervention overall in the country in the US
-I don't believe that people, in general, will uprise after a man like Trump, but that they will rather get annoyed to his antics and monkey acts sitting at at home, because Trump will NOT directly affect their lives; the majority or the ruling class. People will talk about in forums like this. They will create new groups and other groups will transform. That's all.
In fact, the ruling class thinks like Trump or rather does not have to think at all, because they perfectly know nobody will uprise or actually make a united effort to make any change in any manner.
If anything is going to happen it would happen between people(s) in subtle terms and that will spread to make the country 'poorer' in many aspects and the society will get used to that and the new generations will be born in that and the society will transform. It will become the new culture.
What was the general culture before and what happened with Bush? What has it become with Obama? Why would anything change with Trump?
The first sight of a real unrest, the people will try to suppress it. People will act like exactly they do watching police violence videos it will become a show, a game. People cannot stand an agressive, offensive video against racism while Trump, a man heading to top office of the country is being cheered by disgustingly sexist remarks and people think there could be serious unrest to make a change? :lol:
Well, we'll see. But as long as the base stays, the corrupted government stays. Unless the violent big C gets addressed properly. Do you see that happening? I just see a fragmented, hotblooded young civil groups with liberal art degree trying something in context of social life and getting trashed by meaningless labels like 'regressive left' by other groups whose benefits conflicted with their or just offended by them. In this picture, it is a kind of a situation you wouldn't know to laugh or cry and go with both.
This isn't really that big of news. It was decades ago that Republicans started doing this. "I can't be racist! I have a black friend!" or "I can't be a homophobe! I know a gay guy...who's going to Hell!" Most recently I remember, "The TEA Party isn't racist! WE have a black guy!"
Drunkenshoe ... yes, civil unrest isn't immanent. But the corruption is unstable, the finance is a house of cards now as it was in 2008. Cut American standard of living in half, and people will get upset. Ideology isn't the driver, it simply is the excuse. Just like blaming immigrants.
We are talking about the same thing. I wasn't talking about some specific ideology, I should remember not to type specific names in the forum, everything gets confused. There is no ideology at work in the US beyond extreme right and it is the fortress of most violent capitalism in the world. And two parties built on it. There is no ideology, no opposition, politics or side to breach that.
I was talking about the the word nobody likes to type. Capitalism. By that word I don't mean the basic definition as a colourful ideology as opposed to another one, but what generally the American base which is at an extreme end. It's unique to this culture. People over all, good or bad reached to that 'standard' by that base and the politics-the culture it produced you summarised with certain points in your first post. And finally it reached a phase so destructive it could/will annihilate the middle class and leave only the poor and and the filthy rich in the near future. Doesn't matter what you put as an excuse in superstructure. As long as the base works the same, the outcome will arive to be the same.
To change the corrupt system you talk about, you would need to collapse, destroy what makes USA, The USA in every aspect and rebuild again. Cannot be done. So Trump or Clinton wouldn't make a difference and that's also why it cannot be done.
Correct ... but a military dictatorship to restore order, would be different. Not better. This could have happened in the weeks following the assassination of Lincoln, according to some historians. Grant and Sherman could have gotten together ... and suppressed Congress/SCOTUS if need be. Fortunately things didn't go that far. Ultimately the Reconstruction planned by the Radical Republicans ;-) ... the original neo-libs ... failed after 10 years. The US didn't have it's Robespierre nor its Napoleon. As subsequent history proved, it took another 100 years before radicalism had another chance. Part of what is happening now is reactionary to what happened 50 years ago.