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Latest opinion piece by ex CIA head John Brennan. A patriot who protected and served his country for decades and is nauseated by the words and actions of the first U.S. President in history to have colluded/conspired with an enemy country trying to subvert our democratic elections. A president who passed top secret intelligence to the foreign minister and ambassador of said country in the White House and who only weeks ago met in secret with his handler with no other U.S. security official present.
Opinion | John Brennan: President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash
Opinion | John Brennan: President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash
Brando
Active Member
He kicked things into high gear. Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. are you kidding us?
Dick Cheney? Oh, well. If you don't know history then you'll probably just keep repeating it. good luck.
I have no clue what happened. I wrote a post responding to you and JRP3 and it all got collapsed down to that.
I don't recall what else I wrote, but it boiled down to "I think you misunderstood some of what I said".
Well, finally the orange idiot says something useful 
Trump pushes for an end to quarterly earnings reports
Trump pushes for an end to quarterly earnings reports
Well, finally the orange idiot says something useful
Trump pushes for an end to quarterly earnings reports
He probably wants to be able to hide more malfeasance with this.
Something along those lines isn't a bad idea though. I came across this recently:
Modern companies think long-term. Soon the market will, too.
It's a number of ideas to encourage public companies to think long term rather than short term. That is a great idea IMO.
I saw this trend start in the 1980s when T Boone Pickens started raiding companies. Short term investing began to become more of a thing and more and more investors wanted to get a quick return on their investments. Trickle down economics has made it worse as less money is invested in industry and more is in the markets trading paper to make more paper. We have a glut of capital and not enough money in circulation.
As more and more investors try to make a quick turn, they do everything they can to increase their return. Because they can both vote with the money (pull it out of a company) and vote in shareholder's meetings. They use those levers to push companies into turning the best profit possible every quarter which forces public companies to think short term over long term.
Elon has said that SpaceX is much more efficient in large part because it's a private company and they don't need to focus on quarterly to quarterly financials and instead can focus on the long term goals.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
The question for me is who runs the show? Is it the people creating the value (companies, entrepreneurs, etc.) or finanicial types? If you let the tail (financial types) wag the dog (those actually creating the value), results are predictable. I've watched money types come to rule the roost while corrupting those running companies along the way. IMO, it is only a matter of time until the process collapses. It kinda reminds me of unmanaged defect spending; its all nuts.
End of old grumpy rant.
End of old grumpy rant.
When even the war criminals are openly panicking about the President selling the country out to Putin... it shows things have gotten pretty bad.
I would remind people of the point when members of the Prussian right-wing elite started warning about Hitler, or the point when members of the Japanese right-wing elite started warning about Tojo, or the point when members of the Communist Russian elite started warning about Stalin...
OK, anyway, my point is, the current administration is so deranged that even a bunch of pretty bad people can tell that it's spectacularly dangerous. We're getting people joining the Democratic Party who are hardcore right-wingers just because Trump's blatant treason or his blatant corruption or his blatant denial of relaity is too far beyond the pale of civilization for them. This is a good thing if it gets our country back on a path to sanity.
I get that we have to choose between the lesser of two evils. But there should be a way to acknowledge when one side is evil without automatically meaning it celebrates the other side.
We have been listening to Rick Wilson's audiobook (Everything trump Touches Dies). My SO has been following him for the last year. He's unapologetic about being a conservative, but he is raising the alarm that the Trump has run the Republicans off the tracks and where we're going is a very dangerous path.
He wrote a letter to every influential person he knew in the Republican party (which is a long list) warning about Trump in 2015. He said that they could spend a million stopping him early in the campaign, a few million stopping him later in the campaign, or spend billions and let the Democrats rule the country for a generation if they let him go all the way.
He has done some thinking about how we got here and how bad the rot is in the party, but I think where he fails is in seeing just how extensive it has been for a while. As I commented to my SO last night, it's like he's fighting brain cancer without realizing it started in the liver.
The Democrats are far from perfect, but their problems are the politics as usual type problems rather than treason in spirit if not by law (the US Constitution has a very narrow definition of treason and Trump has not technically crossed that line because the US is not at war with Russia). I don't like the idea of effectively a one party (Democrats) state while the right rebuilds, but the first task when the ship gets torpedoed is saving the ship. Worry about making it to port next.
One thing in favor of Republicans is that they have already started their cleansing. Trump is a part of it but I doubt he will define the future of the Republican party. But he did his job of ridding it of the corrupt influences like the Bushes, McCain, etc. The new Republican party (good or bad) will not look like the one from the last 20-30 years.
The Democrats are still in the process of this cleansing. Bernie Sanders started the process but the job hasn't been completed as Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, and other corporatists are still in charge.
This upcoming election will see which part of the Democrat party is in charge when they win the House. Even more importantly, the 2020 election will define it even further. I can see a case where the Democrats nominate another establishment candidate while the DNC continues to play its games and still lose to Trump. That will force the Dems to re-examine it's platform and allow a progressive to rise.
The Republican party has expelled anyone who can think for themselves. Trump's approval within the party is 80%, largely because those who don't like him have been shown the door. The GOP is well on its way towards becoming a fascist party. The "corpratists" are the least of our problems at this point. Whether the constitution is going to hold up is the biggest issue.
The bulk of America is fairly centrist. Some a bit right, some a bit left. Those who are right of center who have voted Republican most of their life are willing to vote Democrat if the Democrats put up reasonable, centrist candidates. Putting up someone who is too progressive is going to keep those people home or they will vote Republican hoping against hope they will do something about orange Mussolini.
The corruptions of corporate over influence in American politics is like diabetes. It isn't good, it can kill someone, but when someone has been shot and is bleeding out, the goal is to save the patient, not worry about their blood glucose levels.
I recommend getting Rick Wilson's book. I guarantee you won't agree with everything he says. I don't and I'm closer to a centrist than you. However, he's telling the world how the conservatives see the world and who they will and won't vote for. He is a good barometer for how the centrist-right voters will and won't vote for. He has said that if the Democrats put up Kamala Harris in 2020 she will win about 7 states. He may be exaggerating a bit, but he has a point.
In 20 years the US might be much more progressive than it is now due to the Millennials coming into middle age, but right now, the middle age people are Gen X who are somewhat more conservative and it's a reality people need to deal with.
I agree with most of what you said but I don't think Trump was about conservatism. Midwest voters chose Trump to be anti-establishment and not because he was conservative. Look at Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 trailer.
To me, Kamala Harris wouldn't stand a chance either but not because she's too progressive but because she would be the establishment (DNC in this case) candidate and completely inauthentic.
The next Democratic candidate to win the presidency will have to be an anti-establishment candidate and a genuine progressive.
In the long term, it won't matter because demographics (as you point out) will make more of a difference than anything else.
I see Trump as a reverse Jimmy Carter who'll open the door for a more progressive candidate with his failure just as Carter opened the door for the more conservative Reagan with his
To me, Kamala Harris wouldn't stand a chance either but not because she's too progressive but because she would be the establishment (DNC in this case) candidate and completely inauthentic.
The next Democratic candidate to win the presidency will have to be an anti-establishment candidate and a genuine progressive.
In the long term, it won't matter because demographics (as you point out) will make more of a difference than anything else.
I see Trump as a reverse Jimmy Carter who'll open the door for a more progressive candidate with his failure just as Carter opened the door for the more conservative Reagan with his
Brando
Active Member
I thought Feds. are practising long term thinking/planning already?
Vietnam 1945 - 1974 (oh, did read Pentagon Papers? We were paying $50 million/year to the French)
Afghanistan 1979(bin Laden was Reagan's Freedom Fights til now.
Iraq 1991 til now.
Germany 1944 til now.
you get the idea - [we did get kicked out of Philippians for a while, right?]
Seems we have proven how well the Feds handle long term.
bhtooefr
Active Member
Pulled over to this thread...
The left wing that you speak of exists in the US, but we're to the left of the Democrats (who have, since 1992, followed a "third way" script of basically being Republican-lite), and we're really not happy with the state of media reporting (especially after seeing what major media did to Bernie Sanders). It became quite clear in 2016 what horse the media backed.
There are issues, though, on the left with this - just as the extreme right have Russian-generated fake news, we've got our own share of it on the left, too (sometimes it's even the same news, if the goal is to deepen divides against Democrats), and many left-wing communities constantly get infiltrated by pro-Trump and pro-Russia trolls... (usually they're clumsy enough to get noticed quickly though)
The left wing that you speak of exists in the US, but we're to the left of the Democrats (who have, since 1992, followed a "third way" script of basically being Republican-lite), and we're really not happy with the state of media reporting (especially after seeing what major media did to Bernie Sanders). It became quite clear in 2016 what horse the media backed.
There are issues, though, on the left with this - just as the extreme right have Russian-generated fake news, we've got our own share of it on the left, too (sometimes it's even the same news, if the goal is to deepen divides against Democrats), and many left-wing communities constantly get infiltrated by pro-Trump and pro-Russia trolls... (usually they're clumsy enough to get noticed quickly though)
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Brando
Active Member
Did you use the word genuine? Oh, I know what you are referring to - I think the quote is closer to:
Learn to fake sincerity and you can get elected to most any political position.
At least half the people (this would be the half that actually bother to vote) fall for this sincerity thing which is why we go from Republican to Democrat and back. All those enlightened voted for a blackman and then they all turned racist and voted to a Rich New Yorker Developer - is that what you believe?
Let me see
- King George wasn't going to be the world's policeman (perhaps bombing everyone isn't quite the same)
- Obama was going to change things and close Gitmo.
- Trump said wasting all that money on war in the Middle East had to stop. Really really stupid.
I see genuine. that's it. [suspect they are ALL puppets and we don't pay them enough to work for us]
I can't unscramble much of the discussion above since I'm not an Americanist.
In the first class I taught about political philosophy I was asked to define conservative and liberal. My first stab was "Conservatives like to keep things worth keeping. Liberals what to change things worth changing. If there were a science of politics, they would be arguing only about tactics." Nearly six decades later, many wars, at least three high profile assassinations, and many trillions lost since Reagan started getting government "off our backs," my views have hardened.
In other words Madison noted in Federalist 51, constitutions and political theorists try to achieve a reconciliation between two logically contradictory goals, freedom and order. The ying and yang principle of Asian thinking and Hegel's first law coincide: the unity of opposites. Political parties struggle over accommodating these contradictory goals over who gets what when and how in what we very loosely call democracies. Given the notion that money is everything supposedly at the heart of capitalist society, and the assumption one must always compete for it, politics now can be defined as the struggle for control over peoples' picture of reality. That was what I was saying in a souped-up version of Government 1 by the 70s.
At about the same time I was teaching Robert Bellah et al. who argued the founders were immersed in either the teachings of their Judeo-Christian heritage or were civic republicans, the assumption being they had an ethical vocabulary in which they could consider the public good and the dangers of private interest and factions, etc. Now we are only out for ourselves. And the worse things get the more desperate we yearn for a solution. Our solution, and quick! Thus American individualism, for all its creative vigor eventually reached its logical breaking point as Philip Slater noted in The Pursuit of Loneliness. Now we have become a breeding ground of, by, and for fascists. A wet dream for nihilists like Putin.
How might we recapture the vision of the founders?
Our courts and legal scholars debate the Constitution and suggest they know what they meant in terms more varied and complicated for my simple mind. As I’ve suggested at the start of this thread, the answer of the founders is clearly stated in the Constitution’s Preamble. Now and all future elections every candidate, both parties, should be asked their views about problems of the day in light of:
How do they help to form a more perfect union? How do they establish justice? How do they insure domestic tranquillity? How do they provide for the common defense? How do they promote the general welfare? How do they secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?
How does beating up on allies, adversaries, women, Mother Earth, young people, ethnic minorities, immigrants, children, separating families, mocking the disabled, excoriating the FBI. the Justice Department, denigrating a free press fit into such a campaign? I’m a non-believer so can’t label Trump the anti-Christ, but he’s at least the anti-Constitution, Steve Bannon’s ego toy.
You think fascism is too harsh? As Elon might say, bite me. We need fundamental change.
In the first class I taught about political philosophy I was asked to define conservative and liberal. My first stab was "Conservatives like to keep things worth keeping. Liberals what to change things worth changing. If there were a science of politics, they would be arguing only about tactics." Nearly six decades later, many wars, at least three high profile assassinations, and many trillions lost since Reagan started getting government "off our backs," my views have hardened.
In other words Madison noted in Federalist 51, constitutions and political theorists try to achieve a reconciliation between two logically contradictory goals, freedom and order. The ying and yang principle of Asian thinking and Hegel's first law coincide: the unity of opposites. Political parties struggle over accommodating these contradictory goals over who gets what when and how in what we very loosely call democracies. Given the notion that money is everything supposedly at the heart of capitalist society, and the assumption one must always compete for it, politics now can be defined as the struggle for control over peoples' picture of reality. That was what I was saying in a souped-up version of Government 1 by the 70s.
At about the same time I was teaching Robert Bellah et al. who argued the founders were immersed in either the teachings of their Judeo-Christian heritage or were civic republicans, the assumption being they had an ethical vocabulary in which they could consider the public good and the dangers of private interest and factions, etc. Now we are only out for ourselves. And the worse things get the more desperate we yearn for a solution. Our solution, and quick! Thus American individualism, for all its creative vigor eventually reached its logical breaking point as Philip Slater noted in The Pursuit of Loneliness. Now we have become a breeding ground of, by, and for fascists. A wet dream for nihilists like Putin.
How might we recapture the vision of the founders?
Our courts and legal scholars debate the Constitution and suggest they know what they meant in terms more varied and complicated for my simple mind. As I’ve suggested at the start of this thread, the answer of the founders is clearly stated in the Constitution’s Preamble. Now and all future elections every candidate, both parties, should be asked their views about problems of the day in light of:
How do they help to form a more perfect union? How do they establish justice? How do they insure domestic tranquillity? How do they provide for the common defense? How do they promote the general welfare? How do they secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?
How does beating up on allies, adversaries, women, Mother Earth, young people, ethnic minorities, immigrants, children, separating families, mocking the disabled, excoriating the FBI. the Justice Department, denigrating a free press fit into such a campaign? I’m a non-believer so can’t label Trump the anti-Christ, but he’s at least the anti-Constitution, Steve Bannon’s ego toy.
You think fascism is too harsh? As Elon might say, bite me. We need fundamental change.
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