Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Eric the Green]

(08-07-2016, 08:45 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-07-2016, 11:01 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-07-2016, 10:18 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-07-2016, 02:08 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It's fine to strike a different note within our liberal echo chamber, Classic. I do think you are emotionally tied to some of the basic Republican ideas, however, but if you consider yourself untied, I'm on board with that; let's see where it leads you.

The working class is diminishing, that's true, which means it's not a solid source of votes for either party. The Democrats have gone more techie and yuppie, as the economy shifts from drudgery to smarts. But the workers will vote liberal if they know what's good for them. Getting the wealthy to pay more taxes will help deal with the charity cases indeed, and what's more, help them to get out of poverty; whereas the trickle-down favor-the-powerful policies of the Republicans have diminished the middle class and expanded poverty for 35 years and counting. The conservative policies are those that have proven they can't hold up, as wealthy has been more and more concentrated due to their policies, while the middle class finds fewer opportunities.

Trump can pose as their champion and their voice, but he would lead them into the ditch so that his own class can continue to corner the market on power and wealth. That's what he's always done, and that's what he'll do despite his claims. And despite their claims, the favor-the-rich policies of the conservatives have never worked. Liberal mixed-economy policies always work, if administered properly, and not taken to extremes by a different leftist "communist" elite. But, that can't happen here, and never has.

I consider myself untied and free to roam politically. Plus, I don't live in an echo chamber or view myself as being associated with one. As you have seen, I'm quite capable of operating  alone and messing up a liberal echo chamber with very limited support. To me, Bob is a liberal fool who doesn't realize that he lives in a echo chamber and actively participates within an echo chamber and receives the bulk of his knowledge and information from an echo chamber. Me, I prefer to get my knowledge and  information first hand. To me, you're a fool. A fool supports a party and a candidate who is more interested in associating itself with Hollywood glamor and glitz, yuppies and techies and other upper end income sorts who represent the money that need for support of their political campaigns and social programs that they claim is being used to lift the poor.

Right; except what's got you fooled and confused, is that those social programs REALLY DO lift the poor! Kick in the head, ain't it? To realize that what you thought was the truth, growing up in Reagan meme land, really isn't? Or at least it WILL be a kick in the head, when and IF you finally DO realize it. Not that programs are the answer to everything, but in fact without them we are all in shit creek. And it's OUR candidates, not yours, who want to reform the system so that big money and glamour does not rule our politics. But little facts like that don't seem to bother you too much. You can continue to float along in YOUR echo chamber and sorta just let those little details go unnoticed. But that's OK; we need some fools like you around to help keep us wise guys on the ball

If that's true, why are Democrats still running on the same issue (income inequality) that they've been running on for decades.

Because virtually everything Democrats have proposed has been blocked for 36 years by the Republicans, and a lot that they accomplished before then has been destroyed by the Republicans. Come on, that's obvious. The inequality issue is what you run on, if the other party has been causing it.

Quote:According to the Democrats, we are still as racist as we've ever been. If that's true, whatever social programs that were created and funded to address that issue isn't working. So, which Democratic view point is one supposed to believe now. Hillary's view point is that America for the most part peachy keen and that there's little for Americans to be concerned about at this time.

I would disagree that Democrats say we haven't made progress on racism, or that America is working peachy keen these days. What they say is that there's a lot to be concerned about after 36 years of Republican mis-rule of our country.

Quote:Clinton didn't make $300 million working within the private sector. Clinton made $300 million while working in politics as a public servant. People who are OK with that really have nothing bad to talk about as far as the Republicans.

I don't know how much she made, but she didn't make it all in the public sector, because you can only get so much in salary while working in those jobs. They did earn money making speeches. Lots of public figures make lots of money giving speeches. We might agree that they get too much, but I don't see that Hillary is unusual in that respect. As has been pointed out to you, Donald Trump has made more.

Quote: Hillary may be viewed as greatest woman that exists to you and your values and whatever values that you've attached yourself to today. Dude, its people like me who are going to virtually wipe out the wise guys that you unknowingly represent. Why waste time screwing around with two pesky old birds when the time is coming and the natural changes are now taking place to take both of them out with one stone. In case you happen to be a liberal fool who still lives and breaths within the same old echo chamber and spends a lot time within the same old echo chamber, the Republican base has removed the politicians that it associated with bullshit. Logically speaking, rejected bullshit that no longer has a side will tend to drift to the side where bullshit still works. The political issue for the progressives are just beginning. The issue is the straight forwardness that will be becoming more and more prevalent on the right. Glitz and glamor, liberal child play and hippie (blue) values are the powers that pretty much rule your politics which is why I no longer pay attention to it or view it as being viable long term. Logically speaking, I expect as the nation moves deeper into crisis our politics will become more serious. The Republicans are ahead of the Democrats in that regard. I keep you on the ball. I love to f--k around with foolish liberals who view themselves on the ball.

It's fine to express your views and challenge liberals like me. But I don't think you've gotten too far. Our values are well-known and proper, and well-expressed here; I don't see a problem with our values. I don't see that Republicans have done a thing to remove the nonsense from their politics or their candidates. They have nominated a candidate who gives us nothing but baloney, and who's only qualification is exactly the sort of glitz and glamour you say you oppose. His only virtue is that he's entertaining, and that "entertainment" consists mostly of insults, self-aggrandizement, taunts and sarcasm. Since they remain tethered to the ideology of the wealthy, I don't see that they have improved their situation, and as the 4T proceeds, they will pay for their decades of blindness to the real issues and the real values-- peace, ecology, economic and social justice, and the brother-sisterhood of all peoples.

[Eric the Green]

(08-07-2016, 03:57 PM)Anthony 58 Wrote: But isn't cutting off immigration a de-facto social program for the poor?  And isn't giving them a plenary indulgence from paying any income tax a de-facto social program for the poor?

Not if immigration is already low (and not if immigration helps and not hurts the poor), and not if they already get that break-- which they do.

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

American Greed: Trump’s Economic Team Is a Who’s Who of What’s Wrong
AUGUST 8, 2016
Richard Eskow
https://ourfuture.org/20160808/american-...ign=pbreak

“I hear America singing,” Walt Whitman wrote, “the varied carols I hear.” Donald Trump hears America singing, too. But where Whitman heard men and women, masons and carpenters, Trump hears only the unvarying monotone of rich white males like himself.

Trump’s tone-deafness was in full effect last week, when he announced his team of economic advisers in advance of what is being billed as “a major economic address” in Detroit on Monday.

Trump’s team isn’t just monochromatic and male. At least four, and perhaps as many six, of the men are billionaires. They range in age from 50 to 74 – or, from “younger old white guy” to “older old white guy.”

Five team members are named Steve – which means that eight of them are not. For diversity, that will have to do.

There are only two economists on the team – and one of them believes in the flat tax.

But hedge funds are represented. So is fracking. And tobacco. And guns. And banking. And steel. And there’s the guy who mismanaged Chrysler before it was rescued by a government intervention.

Trump’s advisory team is a “suicide squad” for the American economy – which seems fitting, since a funder of the new “Suicide Squad” movie is on it, too.

Three team members – economist Peter Navarro, steel magnate Dan DiMicco and real estate investor Thomas Barrack Jr. – have criticized the bad “trade” deals supported by both major parties over the last 25 years. That’s a start, I suppose. But it’s not enough, not by a long shot.

(As for Barrack, he says he raised $32 million for a Trump super PAC from only four donors. He also hosted a Trump fundraiser for $25,000 a ticket – or $100,000 per couple. So much for “the candidate who can’t be bought because he doesn’t need the money.”)

Who’s not represented on Trump’s economic team? Working people. Women. Minorities. The middle class.

There are no union leaders or labor economists to explain why higher wages and a more unionized workforce leads to broader growth prosperity. There’s nobody who’s fighting to close the gender pay gap, or to resist the economic predation that has decimated minority communities. There’s no one who understands the devastating impact that environmental destruction is having on our economy, as well as on our planet and on our bodies.

So who are these men? Old caper movies introduce their players with a montage of them living their daily lives. Here, then, is the Trump Team montage:

Andrew Beal, banker: Beal made his billions buying up distressed properties, sometimes from government agencies. He reportedly plays rough at collection time. “Mr. Beal acknowledges that some debt collectors engaged by his banks may have pushed too hard,” the Wall Street Journal wrote.

Beal likes to play high-stakes poker. He is known for offering risky loans – and because he owns a bank, the US government insures them.

Speaking of government, we forgot to mention: this federally insured tycoon is a libertarian.

Steve Feinberg, financier: Feinberg runs Cerberus Capital Management, which bought Chrysler in 2007 with some other investors and promised to restore it to profitability. Instead they declared bankruptcy and accepted federal bailout money for Chrysler Financial.

Cerberus also purchased a majority share of GMAC in 2006 and accepted federal bailout money for it, too (after the Fed bent the rules and declared it a bank holding company).

Then there are the guns. Cerberus purchased Bushmaster Firearms International, Remington Arms, and several other firearms companies, and merged them all into an entity called the “Freedom Group.” It took an investor revolt to make Cerberus promise to unload these holdings after Bushmaster’s AR-15 was used to kill a number of small children in the Sandy Hook shootings. (It later reneged, saying it couldn’t find a buyer.)

Cerberus also promised to stay out of the gun debate, but two years after Sandy Hook its executives were funding anti-gun control ads – in Connecticut, where the kindergarten massacre occurred.

Feinberg is a major Republican donor. He now says he regrets naming his firm for the three-headed dog that guards the gates of hell.

Steven Mnuchin, financier/film producer: Mnuchin’s investment group “bailed out” a housing lender in California and renamed it OneWest. OneWest, where Mnuchin became CEO, has been strongly criticized for its foreclosure practices.

The California Reinvestment Coalition has called on authorities to investigate OneWest’s apparent pattern of racial discrimination in foreclosures. It also cited its abusive “foreclosures of widows,” which makes it morally indistinguishable from countless silent-movie villains.

On the plus side, Mnuchin was an executive producer on “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil billionaire: Hamm is, among other things, a fracker with extensive holdings in the Bakken Formation.

Bloomberg News reports that Hamm attempted to have some earthquake researchers fired from the University of Oklahoma, where he’s a major donor, because they were investigating the connection between the oil and gas industry and Oklahoma’s “nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes.”

Hamm, who is reportedly worth $11.3 billion, was cited as one of the executives urging Mitt Romney to turn federal lands over to states for oil and gas exploitation.

Believe it or not, this fracker is reportedly under consideration for the job of Energy Secretary in a Trump Administration.

John Paulson, hedge funder: Paulson made billions using credit default swaps to bet against subprime mortgages in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. That’s no crime, and Paulson guessed right – although it did lead to labels like “the hedge funder who bet against America.”

Paulson’s actions reinforce the idea that today’s hedge funds are economically harmful entities. It’s fine for an airline to hedge against the price of oil to protect its bottom line. But it’s hard to see how the bets made by today’s hedge funds help the economy. They are destructive when they lead to market manipulation or the entrapment of unwary investors.

Speaking of which: Paulson went to Goldman Sachs in 2006 and said he wanted to bet against subprime mortgages. Goldman needed a buyer for those investments, which were then packaged as a “collateralized debt obligation” or “CDO” called “Abacus.” It did not reveal that Paulson had shorted them by more than $1 billion. (Summaries here and here.)

Goldman Sachs paid more than half a billion dollars ($550 million) to settle the case. Paulson, who was not accused of wrongdoing, made about $1 billion on the deal. (He’s fallen on harder times lately, although presumably not the “foreclosed widow” kind of hard times.)

“Some investors later would argue that Mr. Paulson’s actions indirectly led to the creation of additional dangerous CDO investments,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “resulting in billions of dollars of additional losses for those who owned the CDO slices.”

That’s a sensible interpretation. Meanwhile, Americans were left wondering what this kind of activity does for them or the economy as a whole – or why their economic future should be entrusted to someone with this sort of background.

These are the architects of the economy Trump would create: a fracker for Energy Secretary, harmful speculators in key advisory roles, and an economy controlled by people who foreclose on widows and profit from gun violence. That’s worth remembering when he speaks in Detroit on Monday.

The America Trump describes is a dark dystopia, competitive and divided and brutal. Now he’s assembled a team that could make that nightmare a reality. We thought “Fury Road” was just a movie. Who knew it was a presidential platform, too?

[Eric the Green]

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-08-2016, 01:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

Of course, all the abstract stuff about cyclical history, world views and partisanship aren't overly important when the candidate simply lacks morals, doesn't honor deals and can't work in good faith with decent people.

[radind]

(08-07-2016, 08:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The Myers-Brigs system of understanding human personalities has four opposing pairs of types.  One that interests me in my exploration of world views and values is the distinction between Judger and Perceptive.  While this isn’t the purest expression of Myers Brigs, I see the Judger as having strong world views and values.  The Judger will have a firm set of principles on how to perceive the world, and a set of goals to be striven towards to improve the world and thrive within it.   The Perceptive is more oriented to the perceiving of the world accurately, on constantly refining his view of the world while being rigidly dependent on it less.

It takes all types.  There is something to be said for both types of thinking, indeed, for all eight of the Myers Briggs stereotypes.  Building a team, I’d want to include representatives of all of them.  A Judger can look at a situation, fit it quickly to his idea of how things work, and come up with a fast and seemingly obvious solution.  A Perceptive might be more inclined to sit there and examine the problem in more detail, to eventually come up with a customized solution appropriate uniquely for the given situation.  Of course, it might be a pain in the rear do do things a bit different in a given case than in every other case, which might annoy the Judger in his desire to cleanly use the tried and true solutions in a similar way every time.  

It’s not so simple as one approach is good, the other bad.

One extreme form of what I think of as a Judger is the religious fundamentalist.  If an individual is totally committed to a holy text, anything that conflicts with the text is false.  Somehow, some way, there is assumed to be an error in the thinking of anyone who disagrees with the holy text.  This can result in discarding entire fields of science wholesale, with a feeling that a student of scripture knows better than professional scientists that have spent their lives working in a given field.

Extreme Judgers with strong political values, extreme partisans, have a talent for defending their world view.  The have, they have to have, solid defense mechanisms that kick in whenever a threat to the validity of their world view rises.  This involves a special ability to ignore all parts of reality that conflicts with or requires refining their way of seeing the world.

A political partisan can be as dedicated to political systems of understanding the world as any religious fundamentalist.  If you are a conservative, you are apt to have the ability to detect doctrinaire partisan progressives that are detached from the world, folks who seemingly have no clue.  Conservative posters on this site will gang up on certain progressives who seem way out there in la la land.  I feel no need to name names or point fingers.  I'll state it as a truth as self evident as anything declared by Jefferson.  While I might label these progressive natives of la la land extreme Judgers with strong world views and values, conservatives are more apt to use more pungent and demeaning language.  It amounts to the same thing.  Some folk are disconnected from reality.

While it might seem easy to identify political opposites whose world views are disconnected from reality, it is difficult to impossible to recognize when one’s own thought patterns are similarly off.  If people direct pungent and insulting language at you frequently, this might be considered a clue.  I’m not one to advocate argument by insult, but when it gets flying well above the usual level there is apt to be a major league world view clash in progress, and one’s own world view is apt to be part of the problem.

I consider myself to lean Perceptive.  It is more important that one’s world view match reality than to cling to the world view one has unchanged.  This doesn’t imply I haven’t got stubborn principles I’ll cling too.  I just have different principles.  Key among them…  If a large number of people follow a political world view, at one point the world view was appropriate and worked.  There are historical reasons people were drawn to it.  Once drawn in, it is hard to revaluate it, hard to tune it or incorporate changing circumstances, but if one looks back in history there are generally valid reasons various world views came to exist and dominate.

I hold this to be true of both the FDR New Deal world view and the Reagan - Nixon unravelling memes.  There are times of crisis when things are falling apart, when it is necessary and appropriate to come together to work for the common good of all.  There are times of unravelling when one party has been in power too long, when taxing and spending are being done to win favor from special interest groups more than to solve dire and otherwise unsolvable problems, when a progressive party has been in power too long and has become corrupt and inefficient.

People are not (fill in your favorite insult here) for embracing either world view.  Both can be justified.  Both have their place in history.  The place for helping each other out as things are falling apart is in a crisis.  FDR was a fine crisis leader.  We’re heading into another crisis today.  Nixon and Reagan — well, Reagan anyway — was a fine unravelling leader.  The GIs and to an extent the Silent and Boomers as well were well and truly burned out trying to bear any burden, pay any price, fight any foe, etc…  We had tried to do too much.  We failed at too many things with Watergate, the hostage crisis, oil crisis, stagflation, the fall of Saigon and national malaise.  It was time for a change and a break.

I’m into cyclical history to the extent of saying the FDR and Reagan memes are part of the cycle, with both sets of ideas having their place.  My world view has come to embrace cyclical history more than either the FDR or Reagan memes.  I see the current election as a referendum between the two sets of memes, a vote on where we are or ought to be in the cycle.  I can look at extreme Judger partisans who cling to one set of memes or the other with rigid certainty while rejecting the other absolutely and without doubt and shake my head in great frustration.

Now, the policies appropriate to today are no more a precise return to FDR than Reagan’s memes are a replication of Gilded Age laissez faire.  History doesn’t go around in a circle.  It’s a spiral.  Major progress is made every crisis.  The problems being solved in any given crisis are not the same as the problems of the crisis before.  Thus, the new solutions will reflect four score and seven years worth of changing technology and culture.

But you still want to work together for a common cause for the common good in a crisis, while that sort of intensity and dedication isn’t going to be sustained indefinitely.  One shouldn’t try.  Unravellings are a time for the Robber Barons, while crises are a time for the People.

But people generally don’t think cyclically when examining their political values.  Some will say FDR’s ideas were great for his time and embrace them.  Others will say Reagan’s ideas were great for his time and embrace them.  Few are ready to admit that both leaders had considerable merit, knew their country, knew the mood of the people given the state of the cycles when they took power.  Both did what they felt had to be done, what was entirely appropriate during their times in office.

A cyclical world view embracing and including both sets of values is more complex and nuanced than either world view alone.  To me, both sets of values have merit in their time and place.  Neither set should be embraced as all inclusive.  One needs to understand and respect both sets of values if one is to truly understand a culture where both FDR and Reagan are respected and revered.  One can’t forget, though, that both sets of ideas have flaws.  Each way of thinking has its time, and that time is not always.  One can’t blindly worship what was right a decade or a century ago.  One must absolutely acknowledge the flaws in both perspectives and be ready to tune and improve big time.

Not that I expect extreme Judgers, extreme partisans, to grow their world views that much.  That is really really hard.  People are used to thinking linear and thinking binary.  One sees either or confrontation rather than inclusive understanding.  If one side of a world view clash is right, it seems to follow that the other side must be wrong.

Buzz.  Incorrect.  There is more to history and politics than you can find while clinging to either set of values only.

Very interesting post and worth some reflection.  While working for the US government, I took the Myers Briggs test several times. My results were consistently INTP.
It is clear that most don't change their world view. I agree that linear thinking is most common, but sometimes we need a non-linear approach.

[Bob Butler 54]

It seems a bunch of Republicans familiar with foreign policy agree with Obama that Trump is unfit to be president.  CBS reports Republican foreign policy officials sign anti-Trump letter.

Dozens of former Republican national security officials Wrote:"None of us will vote for Donald Trump," the letter, which was published Monday by the New York Times, says. The authors then go on to characterize the billionaire as unfit for the Oval Office, saying he lacks the moral authority, judgement and foreign policy expertise.

"Unlike previous Presidents who had limited experience in foreign affairs, Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself," the letter said. "He continues to display an alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics."

CBS Wrote:The letter features the signatures of many former George W. Bush cabinet members and policy advisors, including former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden, former intelligence chief John Negroponte and former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge.

There is a more cynical and less serious side of me that suggests that if a bunch of former Bush 43 officials agree on something to do with foreign policy, they must be wrong. Still, I think for once I can agree with these guys.

[Classic-Xer]

(08-07-2016, 08:49 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The Myers-Brigs system of understanding human personalities has four opposing pairs of types.  One that interests me in my exploration of world views and values is the distinction between Judger and Perceptive.  While this isn’t the purest expression of Myers Brigs, I see the Judger as having strong world views and values.  The Judger will have a firm set of principles on how to perceive the world, and a set of goals to be striven towards to improve the world and thrive within it.   The Perceptive is more oriented to the perceiving of the world accurately, on constantly refining his view of the world while being rigidly dependent on it less.

It takes all types.  There is something to be said for both types of thinking, indeed, for all eight of the Myers Briggs stereotypes.  Building a team, I’d want to include representatives of all of them.  A Judger can look at a situation, fit it quickly to his idea of how things work, and come up with a fast and seemingly obvious solution.  A Perceptive might be more inclined to sit there and examine the problem in more detail, to eventually come up with a customized solution appropriate uniquely for the given situation.  Of course, it might be a pain in the rear do do things a bit different in a given case than in every other case, which might annoy the Judger in his desire to cleanly use the tried and true solutions in a similar way every time.  

It’s not so simple as one approach is good, the other bad.

One extreme form of what I think of as a Judger is the religious fundamentalist.  If an individual is totally committed to a holy text, anything that conflicts with the text is false.  Somehow, some way, there is assumed to be an error in the thinking of anyone who disagrees with the holy text.  This can result in discarding entire fields of science wholesale, with a feeling that a student of scripture knows better than professional scientists that have spent their lives working in a given field.

Extreme Judgers with strong political values, extreme partisans, have a talent for defending their world view.  The have, they have to have, solid defense mechanisms that kick in whenever a threat to the validity of their world view rises.  This involves a special ability to ignore all parts of reality that conflicts with or requires refining their way of seeing the world.

A political partisan can be as dedicated to political systems of understanding the world as any religious fundamentalist.  If you are a conservative, you are apt to have the ability to detect doctrinaire partisan progressives that are detached from the world, folks who seemingly have no clue.  Conservative posters on this site will gang up on certain progressives who seem way out there in la la land.  I feel no need to name names or point fingers.  I'll state it as a truth as self evident as anything declared by Jefferson.  While I might label these progressive natives of la la land extreme Judgers with strong world views and values, conservatives are more apt to use more pungent and demeaning language.  It amounts to the same thing.  Some folk are disconnected from reality.

While it might seem easy to identify political opposites whose world views are disconnected from reality, it is difficult to impossible to recognize when one’s own thought patterns are similarly off.  If people direct pungent and insulting language at you frequently, this might be considered a clue.  I’m not one to advocate argument by insult, but when it gets flying well above the usual level there is apt to be a major league world view clash in progress, and one’s own world view is apt to be part of the problem.

I consider myself to lean Perceptive.  It is more important that one’s world view match reality than to cling to the world view one has unchanged.  This doesn’t imply I haven’t got stubborn principles I’ll cling too.  I just have different principles.  Key among them…  If a large number of people follow a political world view, at one point the world view was appropriate and worked.  There are historical reasons people were drawn to it.  Once drawn in, it is hard to revaluate it, hard to tune it or incorporate changing circumstances, but if one looks back in history there are generally valid reasons various world views came to exist and dominate.

I hold this to be true of both the FDR New Deal world view and the Reagan - Nixon unravelling memes.  There are times of crisis when things are falling apart, when it is necessary and appropriate to come together to work for the common good of all.  There are times of unravelling when one party has been in power too long, when taxing and spending are being done to win favor from special interest groups more than to solve dire and otherwise unsolvable problems, when a progressive party has been in power too long and has become corrupt and inefficient.

People are not (fill in your favorite insult here) for embracing either world view.  Both can be justified.  Both have their place in history.  The place for helping each other out as things are falling apart is in a crisis.  FDR was a fine crisis leader.  We’re heading into another crisis today.  Nixon and Reagan — well, Reagan anyway — was a fine unravelling leader.  The GIs and to an extent the Silent and Boomers as well were well and truly burned out trying to bear any burden, pay any price, fight any foe, etc…  We had tried to do too much.  We failed at too many things with Watergate, the hostage crisis, oil crisis, stagflation, the fall of Saigon and national malaise.  It was time for a change and a break.

I’m into cyclical history to the extent of saying the FDR and Reagan memes are part of the cycle, with both sets of ideas having their place.  My world view has come to embrace cyclical history more than either the FDR or Reagan memes.  I see the current election as a referendum between the two sets of memes, a vote on where we are or ought to be in the cycle.  I can look at extreme Judger partisans who cling to one set of memes or the other with rigid certainty while rejecting the other absolutely and without doubt and shake my head in great frustration.

Now, the policies appropriate to today are no more a precise return to FDR than Reagan’s memes are a replication of Gilded Age laissez faire.  History doesn’t go around in a circle.  It’s a spiral.  Major progress is made every crisis.  The problems being solved in any given crisis are not the same as the problems of the crisis before.  Thus, the new solutions will reflect four score and seven years worth of changing technology and culture.

But you still want to work together for a common cause for the common good in a crisis, while that sort of intensity and dedication isn’t going to be sustained indefinitely.  One shouldn’t try.  Unravellings are a time for the Robber Barons, while crises are a time for the People.

But people generally don’t think cyclically when examining their political values.  Some will say FDR’s ideas were great for his time and embrace them.  Others will say Reagan’s ideas were great for his time and embrace them.  Few are ready to admit that both leaders had considerable merit, knew their country, knew the mood of the people given the state of the cycles when they took power.  Both did what they felt had to be done, what was entirely appropriate during their times in office.

A cyclical world view embracing and including both sets of values is more complex and nuanced than either world view alone.  To me, both sets of values have merit in their time and place.  Neither set should be embraced as all inclusive.  One needs to understand and respect both sets of values if one is to truly understand a culture where both FDR and Reagan are respected and revered.  One can’t forget, though, that both sets of ideas have flaws.  Each way of thinking has its time, and that time is not always.  One can’t blindly worship what was right a decade or a century ago.  One must absolutely acknowledge the flaws in both perspectives and be ready to tune and improve big time.

Not that I expect extreme Judgers, extreme partisans, to grow their world views that much.  That is really really hard.  People are used to thinking linear and thinking binary.  One sees either or confrontation rather than inclusive understanding.  If one side of a world view clash is right, it seems to follow that the other side must be wrong.

Buzz.  Incorrect.  There is more to history and politics than you can find while clinging to either set of values only.

A couple of names come to mind as examples, Classic/KIA (highly perceptive person representing r-libertarian values) and Kiff (highly judgemental person representing so called liberal values or left wing-progressive values). I found it odd that I had to constantly remind Kiff that she lived in the United States. Now, that may not be what she wanted hear, may not be what she wanted to accept or believe as far as the future was concerned but it was the cold reality that she was facing as far as the rest of her life and the lives of her children are concerned. So, just out curiosity, are you going to so called cling to our American values or cling to your progressive values? The dividing line within America has become very very clear to me.

[pbrower2a]

(08-08-2016, 08:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: It seems a bunch of Republicans familiar with foreign policy agree with Obama that Trump is unfit to be president.  CBS reports Republican foreign policy officials sign anti-Trump letter.

Dozens of former Republican national security officials Wrote:"None of us will vote for Donald Trump," the letter, which was published Monday by the New York Times, says. The authors then go on to characterize the billionaire as unfit for the Oval Office, saying he lacks the moral authority, judgement and foreign policy expertise.

"Unlike previous Presidents who had limited experience in foreign affairs, Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself," the letter said. "He continues to display an alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics."

CBS Wrote:The letter features the signatures of many former George W. Bush cabinet members and policy advisors, including former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden, former intelligence chief John Negroponte and former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge.

There is a more cynical and less serious side of me that suggests that if a bunch of former Bush 43 officials agree on something to do with foreign policy, they must be wrong.  Still, I think for once I can agree with these guys.

Even these guys have some limits.

Was Tom Ridge particularly bad?

[Eric the Green]

[Eric the Green]

Trickle-down Trumponomics

[Eric the Green]

This was the week of where do I begin?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-09-2016, 09:06 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This was the week of where do I begin?

Sure was an easy week for his monologue writers.

[Eric the Green]

Well let's see, it's been almost a year now; maybe the ride is breaking down now?

[pbrower2a]

Quote:Donald Trump said a lot of different things last week so we polled to what share of his supporters bought into each of them:

-69% of Trump voters think that if Hillary Clinton wins the election it will be because it was rigged, to only 16% who think it would be because she got more vote than Trump. More specifically 40% of Trump voters think that ACORN (which hasn't existed in years) will steal the election for Clinton. That shows the long staying power of GOP conspiracy theories.

-48% of Trump voters think that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton deserve the blame for Humayun Khan's death to 16% who absolve them and 36% who aren't sure one way or the other (Obama was in the Illinois Legislature when it happened.) Showing the extent to which Trump supporters buy into everything he says, 40% say his comments about the Khans last week were appropriate to only 22% who will grant that they were inappropriate. And 39% of Trump voters say they view the Khan family negatively, to just 11% who have a positive opinion of them.

-Even though Trump ended up admitting it didn't exist 47% of his voters say they saw the video of Iran collecting 400 million dollars from the United States to only 46% who say they didn't see the video. Showing the extent to which the ideas Trump floats and the coverage they get can overshadow the facts, even 25% of Clinton voters claim to have seen the nonexistent video.

-Trump said last week that Hillary Clinton is the devil, and 41% of Trump voters say they think she is indeed the devil to 42% who disagree with that sentiment and 17% who aren't sure one way or the other.

We've been writing for almost a year that there's a cult like aspect to Trump's supporters, where they'll go along with anything he says. Trump made some of his most outlandish claims and statements yet last week, but we continue to find that few in his support base disavow them.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/...march.html
This pollster (PPP) despises Donald Trump.  But this pollster has been around for a while, and it is Donald Trump who has brought something new to American politics. People out of touch with reality in politics who make outrageous claims deserve the ridicule that people like me dish out at them.
One thing that we need in this Crisis Era -- teaching that makes people more media-savvy so that they do not fall for dodgy demagogues.

[pbrower2a]

A politician who who sows mass ignorance and does nothing to weed it out can compel us to cultivate a wrecked crop.

Donald Trump is potentially to American politics what the potato blight was to Irish agriculture in the 1840s.

[Eric the Green]

Sometimes I do think there's no hope for our country.

[Cynic Hero '86]

(08-09-2016, 01:11 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: I have to admit that back during the 90s and around Y2K I was reading anti-Clinton / anti-Hillary books, and subscribed to some of the conspiracy theories of the time. For me personally, I had an epiphany in Y2K and reformed myself. 9/11 sealed the deal. But knowing about the mind set, I can recognize the fact that there are those who have clung to the same mentality for the past 20 or more years. In my book, whatever warts she may have, and whatever goofs she might have had, H.R.C. proved herself beyond a shadow of a doubt as having the right skills and point of view to be not only a highly capable SoS but also PotUS.

But Hillary is the abomination that the right has always said she was. 49 prominent political opponents have died under suspicious circumstances over the course of her career. She wants to destroy our rights, and emasculate america. Her ambitions to do this goes all the back to the 90s when she led the campaign against video games and a bit later when she led the campaign for gun control. Americans want masculine government back. We are tired of being run by globalist bureaucrats. Its obvious that the boombers (whom eric is a prime example) do not want TRUMP to become president.

[pbrower2a]

(08-09-2016, 01:11 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-09-2016, 10:49 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

Quote:Donald Trump said a lot of different things last week so we polled to what share of his supporters bought into each of them:

-69% of Trump voters think that if Hillary Clinton wins the election it will be because it was rigged, to only 16% who think it would be because she got more vote than Trump. More specifically 40% of Trump voters think that ACORN (which hasn't existed in years) will steal the election for Clinton. That shows the long staying power of GOP conspiracy theories.

-48% of Trump voters think that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton deserve the blame for Humayun Khan's death to 16% who absolve them and 36% who aren't sure one way or the other (Obama was in the Illinois Legislature when it happened.) Showing the extent to which Trump supporters buy into everything he says, 40% say his comments about the Khans last week were appropriate to only 22% who will grant that they were inappropriate. And 39% of Trump voters say they view the Khan family negatively, to just 11% who have a positive opinion of them.

-Even though Trump ended up admitting it didn't exist 47% of his voters say they saw the video of Iran collecting 400 million dollars from the United States to only 46% who say they didn't see the video. Showing the extent to which the ideas Trump floats and the coverage they get can overshadow the facts, even 25% of Clinton voters claim to have seen the nonexistent video.

-Trump said last week that Hillary Clinton is the devil, and 41% of Trump voters say they think she is indeed the devil to 42% who disagree with that sentiment and 17% who aren't sure one way or the other.

We've been writing for almost a year that there's a cult like aspect to Trump's supporters, where they'll go along with anything he says. Trump made some of his most outlandish claims and statements yet last week, but we continue to find that few in his support base disavow them.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/...march.html

This pollster (PPP) despises Donald Trump.  But this pollster has been around for a while, and it is Donald Trump who has brought something new to American politics. People out of touch with reality in politics who make outrageous claims deserve the ridicule that people like me dish out at them.

One thing that we need in this Crisis Era -- teaching that makes people more media-savvy so that they do not fall for dodgy demagogues.

I have to admit that back during the 90s and around Y2K I was reading anti-Clinton / anti-Hillary books, and subscribed to some of the conspiracy theories of the time. For me personally, I had an epiphany in Y2K and reformed myself. 9/11 sealed the deal. But knowing about the mind set, I can recognize the fact that there are those who have clung to the same mentality for the past 20 or more years. In my book, whatever warts she may have, and whatever goofs she might have had, H.R.C. proved herself beyond a shadow of a doubt as having the right skills and point of view to be not only a highly capable SoS but also PotUS.

The Right used to have some intellectual sophistication, and that held even as it got vicious and reckless. But the intellectual sophistication is gone and the recklessness and viciousness remain.The conspiracy-theory bilge about Bill Clinton got adapted to fit our Marxist, Kenyan, fascist, Islamist, anti-white, reckless, cowardly, militant President... well, why let truth expose the intellectual weakness of an argument? After all, what one believes to be true is more important than the truth, right?

Except, of course, that (1) Dubya has shown what a lousy President one could be, and (2) Barack Obama has done mostly right. Analogies to the two Lost Presidents (Truman and Eisenhower, but especially the latter) are relevant. Reactive Presidents are almost always underrated at the time because the Reactive personality is often troublesome.

While the anti-Clinton stuff was Boom-on-Boom invective, the anti-Obama stuff is either Boom-on-X or X-on-X invective. Reactive leaders in the previous Crisis and subsequent High included some of the nastiest characters of history (most Fascist leaders including traitors, leading perpetrators of the Holocaust, Stalin's hatchet-men, and Stalinist stooges). Thus Tojo, Himmler, Quisling, Beria, and Rakosi, In case anyone thinks that it is strictly a national phenomenon, America had David Curtis Stephenson, a charismatic KKK leader whose viciousness was similar to that of Nazis.

The best sort of Reactive is an administrative or entrepreneurial leader (like Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1940s) who leaves the moralizing to older Idealists who appreciates the pragmatic approach that Idealists do badly at, or the mellowed post-Crisis-era figure who  concerns himself largely to securing peace and prosperity while showing respect for tradition and precedent (like Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s). The 60-something Reactive Presidents that America had between FDR and JFK were terribly underrated while in office -- perhaps because they weren't so good at self-promotion as FDR or JFK. Barack Obama acts much like a 60-something Reactive President, and his virtues should be apparent by now. He's cautious, attentive, honest, respectful of precedent... Brilliant? Brilliance is not enough. Goebbels and Quisling were certifiable geniuses, too. But we get him as President during a Crisis Era, and he is definitely not a Boomer. He just doesn't have the self-righteousness. Maybe he just has an unusual role in history after a failed Idealist President in George W. Bush.

It is time for the Right to go back to recognizing the validity of tradition, to rejecting demagoguery, and to promoting entrepreneurial self-reliance. The Right sacrificed limited government for crony capitalism and rationality for fanaticism. But if Republicans fail at that, then they might end up with little relevance in American life. Democrats are already appropriating conservative themes, and it could be that the Republican Party becomes irrelevant and the ne4xt conservative party appears as an offshoot of or even the mainstream of the Democratic Party -- but a party in which racism, misogyny, crony capitalism, scapegoating, and religious bigotry are unwelcome.