08-15-2018, 10:08 AM
(08-14-2018, 11:03 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: So you're saying, "I am Boomer, hear me roar"?
In my case, it's more like "whinny".
Quote:Let me start by making this point that most people don't fully
appreciate: I believe everything I write. Most people naturally think
I'm some random unprincipled blogger whose views change every day.
But everything I write has very high visibility, and what I write
today has to be consistent with write I wrote yesterday. That's why I
have such high credibility with a large group of people. (If I'm
inconsistent, then someone like Tom Mazanec won't hesitate to point it
out, so I have no choice anyway.)
I am not an original journalist. I am not in an area where original stories are commonplace. The local newspaper has stories about the local offenders (meth bust, DUI, domestic violence, shoplifting, bar brawl) and about the visible goings-on in local chapters of organizations, so what originates here doesn't go far beyond the immediate community.
I have my opinions and interpretations, and I generally write in such a way as to suggest that those are my opinions. When I am involved in a personal interchange, the context is opinion. When someone else makes an issue of my beliefs, opinions, or desires, then the context should make clear that such has only accentuated that this is an issue of opinions.
Nobody can live 100% in the realm of objective reality. A journalist as a reporter might be interested in facts and nothing else, and might be obliged to report the basic 'who-what-when-and-where' as on AP, UPI, or Reuters. Journalists are said to explain 'why', but the blitz-style writing of AP wires makes the reporter's analysis impossible. The analysis is for someone else.
Quote:So I judge Trump and Obama the same way -- by actions and outcomes,
not by tweets and speeches. Of course I've heavily criticized Trump's
xenophobic tweets, but they're still just tweets. What counts is
actions and outcomes.
Of course actions and outcomes matter. Actions and outcomes that have significance are history. Every politician offers his trial balloons. In dealing with foreign powers, there might be inducements and occasionally threats, as in "Remove those troops from Kuwait or we will find ways to remove those".
I recognize that everyone has dark impulses, but most people know enough to contemplate the consequences and recognize the worst voice that goes through his head as something to ignore or reject. Maybe if one is fortunate one can think outside the box and reject the crazier ideas and take the one in a few hundred that is worthy and release it after honing it into something desirable. That is genius. Failing to make such a distinction is either foolishness or insanity, either of which is ordinarily difficult to distinguish in results.
As Heraclitus said, character is destiny (perhaps the best three-word saying neither banal nor absurd) -- and it should be obvious that Obama has far more self-control than does Donald Trump. Self-control may not be the total of character, but it is a huge part. People who lack self-control get themselves in huge trouble for the harm that they do, which explains prisons and madhouses. A trained attorney, Obama knows that every public utterance has potential consequences. He releases what he wants known at the time, and not what can hurt his effectiveness. That is a good practice for ensuring that the drama is in the courtroom and not in the public mind (until the courtroom case or the plea bargain is made). Donald Trump's impulsive tweets are reckless and often damaging.
Everyone has his demons -- I included. I hope that I am able to keep them at bay. I cannot fully understand why the current President releases whatever races through his mind. Perhaps because he is a real-estate man he has been able to say things in the presence of a few associates that simply don't circulate. Because he is the President, anything that he says is potentially within the scrutiny of everyone, especially those who dislike or distrust him. Releasing his stream-of-consciousness thoughts as tweets is reckless in the extreme. I have my biases, especially against conduct inexcusably contrary to adult standards. President Trump does not have the excuse that he is a child.
Quote:In terms of accomplishments, Trump's foreign policy follows the
principles of generational theory, so I'm very pleased with with his
foreign policy, for the most part, and my research indicates that
policies based on generational theory produce the best outcomes that
are possible, given that a world war against China is 100% certain.
(Of course, most of the members of this forum hate Trump for following
generational theory, which is VERY laughable, given that this forum is
the home of 20th century generational theory.)
Generational theory is not an established discipline in academia. Many consider it little better than astrology as a predictor of events. I try to stick to the obvious... the reality that history shapes people in childhood (often indelibly), that what people consider objective reality (witches are real and dangerous due to their powers or people doing alleged witchcraft are harmless eccentrics -- one was good for being hanged in Salem and the other is a veritable tourist attraction) changes with time, that history determines what opportunities are available in young-adulthood and what isn't (so if one is a Boomer and admires the legitimate achievements of GIs, one can't quite replicate the role and get away with it because the GIs have experience that makes you incapable of competing), that institutions form and disintegrate... and above all, as death and senescence take their toll on the elderly whose contributions shaped society, extinction of human memory takes away much that we take for granted in life.
We all interpret generational theory in different ways. I have different assumptions than yours. I see a steady evolution of foreign policy from Reagan to Obama in the long view (Bill Clinton, ideologically so different from the elder Bush, promised to maintain the foreign policy of the incumbent President if he won -- he won and he did!); Trump is an abrupt break. An abrupt break in policy is either necessity as the basic reality changes or is madness if unnecessary.
It is up to us to determine what is a consequence of generational theory and what isn't (such as physical reality and the established corpus of settled fact such as biographical truth, scientific reality, the permanence of death, and logical convention).
Quote:So I agree with you that we're in dangerous territory, but Trump has
absolutely nothing to do with it, except that he's trying to mitigate
the danger. But the danger is a 100% certain war with China.
Donald Trump is revolutionary change to America, and his rise is as much a consequence of generational change as anything else. He is a demagogue, and nations in Crisis eras are more prone to accept demagogues as their peoples see their world and its once-safe assumptions becoming unreliable. The father says to his son, "there will always be a coal mine, and people will always need coal for energy and for steel, and around here that is the best that you can hope for. Unless you want to go to some crazy place like Chicago or Atlanta, you can mine coal and be near family and friends". Then the coal seams get worked out, and natural gas becomes more economical as a source of energy. That parental advice suddenly becomes irrelevant as coal country becomes an economic wasteland. That is only the most blatant. Maybe West Virginia and eastern Kentucky would be wise to cultivate folk culture and tourism to create a different economy, but people are so convinced that coal is the solution that they reject such a view. When the Establishment loses its credibility, all Hell can break loose, as in Germany in the early 1930s.
Polarization of the body politic has made the rise of Donald Trump possible. He has none of the usual qualifications of recent Presidents -- not even holding any elected public office or being a Cabinet secretary. It is bad form to try to impose views that clash with the Establishment (like zero-based budgeting that worked in Georgia government but would not work in Washington DC because Georgia state government is not a good analogue to the American Congress) and then back down, as did Carter. Donald Trump is trying to reshape every aspect of public life that he thinks important. As someone who sees life as little more than gain and indulgence, he assumes that everyone else is so motivated. He has shown how wrong he can be. He is a hero out of an Ayn Rand novel in which the world collapses until people come to the recognition that the greediest and most domineering bastards are the only people capable of running anything and managing wealth. So let them take everything and reward them with unlimited indulgence! Voila, the Great Donald Trump!
I see American public life becoming much more dangerous due to the intensification of political polarization. Barack Obama was careful about what he said, and he riled people up more for what he was than for what he did to people. Donald Trump is a rabble-rousing demagogue, William Jennings Bryan on steroids, who has sought to turn the white working class against minorities and the white middle class on behalf of economic elites. He exudes bigotry and finds plenty of scapegoats. Uniting people against domestic scapegoats is the style of dangerous leaders from Stalin to Hitler to Milosevic. Trump is not a Stalin or Hitler, but we have large numbers of highly-visible, moderately-successful people whom angry people can easily turn against.
Model minorities (think of Jews in Germany before 1933) can go from blessings to objects of venomous hatred in a short time. Poor blacks who did cheap labor as field hands or as cheap indulgence as domestic servants were always safe in "Ku Kluxistan" because the elites needed and wanted them, and would protect them. Individual blacks could be made examples of if they turned to crime -- often petty crime, or perhaps if a young man gave a wolf whistle to a white girl (don't contaminate our precious white women, as 'race' and 'class' are the ultimate reality!) often with savage brutality such as a lynching or a public hanging. The KKK at its worst would never get the chance to set up 'labor' or 'extermination' camps that would destroy black people.
Poor blacks in the South did not have profitable businesses, savings accounts, or other forms of wealth. They had the sorts of jobs that nobody takes except in desperation. Now contrast German Jews, many of whom were visibly successful in business, academia, law, science, medicine, and culture... and a pretty German gentile girl might find an improvement in her life if she could attract some nice Jewish fellow who is an economic success. All that she needs give up is Jesus, pork, and shellfish. When the economy melted down, many German gentiles saw a huge difference between themselves and Jews, and Hitler exploited the resentments. We know the sordid continuation of the story.
Germany had one somewhat-visible model minority; America has several. One of those is Chinese-Americans. Donald Trump so far has left them alone. Guess what happens if his successor tries to satisfy his supporters by expelling or brutalizing them? If you think war with China is already at a 100% chance, does it go to a 150% chance? Yugoslavia under Milosevic got war with nations that had no significant Bosnian Muslim populations. Note well that if a demagogue who follows Donald Trump, gets economic failure, and goes after Chinese-Americans, he is also going against other model minorities -- Korean-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, Filipino-Americans, Americans of south-Asian origin, Arab-Americans, middle-class Hispanics, the black bourgeoisie, and Jews.
But I may be going over the top here. Donald Trump is far from inevitable in achieving a second term. He is not as competent as Clinton in ensuring that the objectionable characteristics are of little relevance in the time. He does not have the good will that Dubya got from the American electorate in the intense patriotism following 9/11. He utterly lacks the political skills of Obama. Watch the 2018 midterm elections to see how the President changes. The best that anyone could hope for in the event of a Democratic win of both Houses of Congress is what California Governor Gerald Brown did after proposition 13 passed -- he recognized that the voters had spoken, and he adapted. He sought ways to cut waste in government with the aid of willing Republicans. Are the results entirely good? Hardly. California's public K-12 education is awful, and the state is a landlord's dream and a tenant's nightmare. But reality is what it is. Elections have consequences, not all for the best.
Quote:So those are a couple of my views, and those are consistent with my
views yesterday, last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years
ago. That's why I have high credibility.
In 1932 Japan was a poor, exotic country with odd customs just entering the industrialized world. In 1932 Germany was still the land of J S Bach, Johann Wilhelm Goethe, and Max Planck about which any German-American could be proud of as origin. In 1932 Italy had an erratic leader but the heritage of the Italian Renaissance on to Giacomo Puccini. In 1942, Americans were not associating Japan with Hokusai, Germany with Brahms, or Italy with Michelangelo. Something obviously changed over ten years... History is all too often an obscene tale written in the blood of innocent people on parchment derived from the cadavers of the innocent people.
Quote:Now let's look at an example of why you have no credibility. You're
willing to excuse Clinton's forcible, violent rapes of at least 7
women, and you're willing to excuse Hillary's raping them again by
trashing those victims, but then you go into some silly, wild rant
condemning Trump at length because he bragged about grabbing some
woman's crotch, pretending that you even care about women except when
it's politically convenient. I hope you understand that the previous
sentence alone explains why I believe you're lying about almost
everything you say. You're totally without principle, and contradict
yourself all the time, except for the one thread that runs through
everything you say -- that you'll say anything to defend and excuse
your hatred of Trump and his supporters.
This is not the 1990s anymore. Violent and forcible. or rape? Not proven. I may be wrong but I am not a liar. Clinton got away with his sexual escapades as nobody does now. He has not run for any public office since his Presidency ended seventeen years ago. It is Donald Trump who brought them up in the debates of 2016, and that may have decided the overall election. We now have a President and majorities in both Houses of Congress and most state legislatures who believe that hardly any human suffering is in excess so long as that suffering enhances the gain, indulgence, and power of economic elites (ownership and the executive class).
Yes, I would urge my daughter to press charges against some thug that she wanted nothing to do with who grabbed her by the crotch -- if I had a daughter who experienced such a sexual assault.
Yes, I hate President Trump's plutocratic, anti-intellectual agenda from which I have nothing to gain. If it should ever be fully implemented, then I can think of a solution to all my problems. I have been referred to the mental health system for making subtle hints to that effect. If all that I can look forward to is standing at a convenience-store counter and checking out cigarettes and booze to people and living in a decrepit trailer, then I have little reason to stay alive.
Quote:What you need to do, for your own good, is to figure out the REAL
reasons why you hate Trump so much and, more importantly, why you so
vitriolically hate the Tea Partiers and the 60 million people who
voted for Trump. That kind of hatred is a sickness, a mental illness.
("Trump derangement syndrome.")
About 45% of Americans have that derangement. In fact I in some ways pity him even more than I loathe him. He is one of the most vacant people that I have ever known to achieve prominence in American life. I am willing to accept that people who were in the Tea Party or voted for Trump have been fooled, and that many of them will come to realize that they have been taken. I also feel sorry for people who get taken in 419 schemes.
If anything you are the one who needs to understand why even the most sympathetic polls to Donald Trump get this sort of result:
[/url]
Quote:[url=https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180814_crosstabs_POLITICO_v1_DK-1.pdf]Morning Consult/Politico, August 10-12. 1992 registered voters.
Approve 44 (+1)
Disapprove 52 (nc)
Strongly approve 24 (+2)
Strongly disapprove 39 (nc)
GCB: D 42 (nc), R 38 (+2)
This poll may overstate the number of people identifying as "Republican" or "Republican-leaning".
Quote:Years ago, I once had a manager tell me that it's important that I
understand my own biases, because then I can compensate for them. If
I don't understand my own biases, then I won't compensate for them and
I'll get into trouble.
...and I have had a boss tell me that my only reason for existence was to make someone people already filthy rich even filthier-rich. So put on that big, bright happy-to-serve-you smile, and quit thinking of anything beyond what is available here and now.
One can accept such or reject such. That is abusive management, the sort common in places that see working people as little more than machines of meat and pay accordingly.
Quote:For your own good, you need to understand your own biases. Perhaps
you're conflating Trump with your father, and you hate your father,
and this is controlling your whole life -- I've discovered that that
sort of thing is fairly common. But whatever the reason, once you
understand your own biases you can compensate for them -- and you
should.
Paging Dr. Freud!
I have more trouble with capitalism than with my father. I didn't have big problems with him until he got senile, after which he lost his inhibitions and became violent and abusive. People who used to respect him saw that and decided to never see him again. But his senility had cause in deterioration of his body. He was no longer the person that I had known for sixty years. That I had to pay dearly for some of his mistakes is not his fault.
Donald Trump is not a father figure to me. He is too close to his age, and I see in him the faults of my generation -- at least until most of us had to deal with the iron reality of capitalist exploitation that has worsened since the 1970s. The common Boomer has been compelled to develop some humility that establishes that he can never go far in life because if one does not succeed at day-to-day survival one will end up dead or in prison. People like Trump ensure that the only people who get ahead are fully complicit in capitalism at its worst -- the low, rigid glass ceilings in bureaucratic organizations and the piked pit underlying what used to be a safety net. Someone like Trump can appeal to people who do not know what he really is.
Donald Trump, to me, is about everything wrong with America. He is what most fascists are, people attempting to restore a feudal social structure upon what has been a free society. His bigoted tweets are disgraces.
I admit to having a problem. It's Asperger's syndrome, and if I had known about it at the right time I would have made appropriate changes in the direction of my life. I might have taken different courses in college and career. I would have avoided the white-collar world with its office politics that people with Asperger's have trouble with, unless to do something like computer programming. There might be skilled trades in which an intense focus serves well, and people skills don't matter so much. I do not have an Oedipus complex.
You do not know me well, and as I can see, you do not relate well to liberals. I recognize that President Trump has been successful at ensuring that he unloads the worst onto people who were never going to support him anyway. That is how most dictators do things -- abuse non-supporters and trivialize their pain.
I see no precedent for Donald Trump as President of the United States, but plenty in other countries -- and those precedents are all horrifyingly ominous. He might not get away with what some of those monsters did -- but it is also possible to drive drunk without incident if one is lucky enough that time.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
