- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Am I the only person who is shocked at the idea of the electorate in one of (many in the west would say THE…) most powerful countries in the world having the choice, towards the end of the year, between a senile geriatric 78 year old, and a senile geriatric 82 year old – to lead them over the next four years and have the (theoretical) “power” to press the nuclear button throughout that time?
Is it not possible for the population of the USA (~335 million people) to find anyone under the age of 75 capable of becoming president? And can’t they see this as political madness?
Or: the choice between “Genocide Joe” and “Mr. Grab-em-by-the-pussy”.
I am sure the Russians envy the Americans with their great choice in leaders! (ok: <end sarcasm>)
(not that the choice in Britain is much better, just a bit younger)
Fat Jon, no you’re not the only person. How must it seem to people in their teens and twenties?
People as old as those candidates have little to lose from global disaster; they’ve had their lives.
Good question but is there a perfect candidate though? I was a bit fooled when Obama came to power – here was a man that seemed humbled and rational, he proposed “Change” from the Bush-years but as soon as he became president, he began to backtrack because of the pressure by the powerful forces within the society. From the banking sector to the Israeli lobby.
So, perhaps the problem is the ‘hidden’ bureaucracy/deeps-state running things in the background that have their own specific self-interests, forces that will make sure no one threat their power?
Left, Right do not seems to have any meaning anymore. The issue seems to be how good a candidate could maneuver with/against the powerful interests in their society.Biden, someone that have the backing of journalists, media, the military, the intelligence services, the western world etc will easily rise to the top.
Trump on the other hand coming more with an oppositional bent to these above named forces. Wanting to make a clean break, ending the corrupt bureaucracy and their power: that is why he face so much hatred (setting aside his obvious bad traits/policies/buffoonery).
That is why we will never see a real oppositional candidate in the west, there are simply too many people with too much power idling in the background that will hinder real change. Almost like the “Nomenklatura” in the Soviet times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura– “…but is there a perfect candidate though?”
No there isn’t. The structure itself is wrong; such immense power should never be invested in an individual.
– “So, perhaps the problem is the ‘hidden’ bureaucracy/deeps-state running things in the background that have their own specific self-interests, forces that will make sure no one threat their power?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
The entire surveillance system needs to be reversed so it points the other way. It spies on the powerless on behalf of the powerful.
good conversation between Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn from their regular Podcast “America This Week”. This time on the RFK-CNN interview which apparently has caused the Biden media attack RFK.
It´s 30 min. about censorship of simple opinions and hypocrisy by Democrats through their media that only allow “yes”- answers when asked whether Trump is a danger to the world while Biden is not and in general are able to only regard any subect under the specter of Trump.
And RFK said the wrong thing.https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-april-5-2024-the
THE INTERCEPT podcast
“No to Biden, No to Trump: Insights From Swing-State Voters
Analyzing double-haters’ criticisms of both presidential candidates with campaign adviser Anat Shenker-Osorio.”
51 min.https://theintercept.com/2024/04/05/deconstructed-trump-biden-swing-state-voters/
An unusual and welcome sober look at the warnings over looming fascism in the US.
At least as a left publication as JACOBIN is concerned:“Liberals’ Heated Fascism Rhetoric Sidesteps Self-Reflection
By Daniel Bessner & Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins
In response to the threat of a second Donald Trump presidency, Democrats are dusting off apocalyptic rhetoric of looming fascism and total democratic collapse. It’s a self-soothing deflection of responsibility more than anything else.”
https://jacobin.com/2024/04/liberals-fascism-rhetoric-democrats-election
https://archive.is/TwlrZ“To be sure, millenarianism has its comforts. As the historian Faisal Devji has noted, the projection of “fascism” — often poorly defined, more an affective trigger word than a grounded political diagnosis — onto some perceived evil group gives the illusion of an essentially unchanging world order beneath the confusion and paranoia that defines the day. While the discourse of liberal anti-fascism is far from calm, it is paradoxically calming to imagine that there is a clear enemy that could be identified and defeated to restore peace and stability. It’s more reassuring than the thornier notion that we must work toward a true political transformation that will trouble the assumptions and comfortable positions of elites across the political spectrum.”
p.s. What I will never understand how people like Democracy Now! staff, or THE NATION, had daily coverage of the monstrous TRUMP. Even in Germany sites ran a daily column called “the daily Trump” with the only purpose to remind us 24/7 that the world is about to end.
Instead of e.g. not reporting on him at all if they truly thought to fight him politically (which in that case would have been much smarter.)“A Trump Playbook”
“As we continue waiting on developments (expected any day), I thought it would be a fun exercise to do some analysis of Trump’s 2024 campaign. This may not be for everyone and I recognize you’re all here for Russiagate and FOIA coverage, not my political analysis.
I view analysis as a skill set, and I believe you can pick up tools by taking on different assignments.”
Apparently, recent polling has indicated that Donald Trump will win the November Election.
Some of Trump’s policy choices are resonating with the public. Many Black and Hispanic voters have claimed they are moving away from Biden towards Trump.
Biden has always thought that Ukraine Russia was incredibly important to America, he has spent twenty years invested in this project.
Today, Zelensky’s five year term expires, yet there will be no elections in Ukraine. It is looking likely that Zelensky will not last out till November, there is also a high chance that Project Ukraine will crumble before the Winter.
This will tend to harm Biden but may help Trump.This piece is not seriously about politics (but why should it be?):
THE NEW YORKER with a goofy, funny account of a Trump rally in the Bronx, where apparently many are “Trumpists”.
Via that angle it eventually tells you more about reality by depicting the chaos and nonsense than those unnecessary high-brow op-eds in the NYT/WaPo:“The Bronx Cheers—Mostly—for Trump
Biden’s a pedophile; Trump’s a fascist; the MAGA Hasidim have to get their act together—and other sentiments spewed at the former President’s rally in Crotona Park.
By Ian Frazier
May 24, 2024
https://archive.is/iUdzip.s. There is a new biopic about former US President Reagan out now. It´s without words:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723808/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_7_q_reagan
The author of the book which it is based on is some Christian nut well connected with the Hoover Institute and friends.
And now some other idiots are using the election to push their biopic about Trump, with Trump Team allegedly moving to ban it, “The Apprentice”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(2024_film)
This place, the US, must be full of lunatics.
No wonder, “Looney Tunes”, were an American invention.
Great first comment by naked capitalism (in this case Lambert Strether)
on “Project 2025: 920 Pages of Irritable Mental Gestures, or a Blueprint for Fascism?”By Lambert Strether of Corrente
intro:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
— Sun TzuProject 2025 – a project organized by the so-called “scholars” at the Heritage Foundation – is in essence an aggregation of contemporary Conservative Thought (if I may so denote it), along with strategies and policies for putting it into practice in a second Trump Administration. Project 2025 has been much in the news lately; see “Inside the Next Republican Revolution” (Politico), and “Project 2025’s Guide to Subverting Democracy” (The Nation). The House Democrats have set up a task force to be a “central hub” of opposition to it; here is the Heritage Foundation’s response. We can expect Project 2025 to be an issue in the 2024 campaign (no doubt, for Democrats, under the heading of “our democracy”).”
So perhaps this thread should be relabeled “Trump v. Clinton”.
Which would be really funny in the vein of “Frankenstein v. Dracula” or “Frankenstein v. Godzilla” or better even: “Dumb and Dumber Too”.
Since in fact from the Dems POV it would make all the sense in the world if their polling is correct.See here a short preview of a paywalled THE RACKET piece:
“Illa in Manila: Will History Demand Trump-Hillary II?
Eight years of madness have brought America to the doorstep of its perfect WWE ending. Let’s get ready to rumble”
https://www.racket.news/p/illa-in-manila-will-history-demandDay 4 of the RNC Coverage by Taibbi/Kirn
2h
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHXG2fKIyyo“Walk around”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlNW-U4hH70
A second person had been filmed on a roof at the Trump Rally.
This one on the Water Tower.The twenty year old, who it has been assumed was the shooter, made himself obvious, by walking around, on his own, for an hour or so, before the shooting. Almost as if he wanted to be noticed.
The question is, who was on the Water Tower?I might be alone in this and it is indeed secondary, but I am surprised over how pale the Republican shining lights are.
Trump, Vance, Carlson shrink to nobodies if I compare them to Cornel West or Charlton Heston (yes odd choice of names.) I am bored by them after 10 seconds.To this day I do not understand Tucker Carlson´s success. He is uninteresting, doesn´t come across as genuine (i.e. a mediocre actor instead of a good one), has zero gravitas which makes his jokes hollow (remember you need rhetorical weight to make humour count), has the aura of greenhorn and rich kid who never left the neighbourhood.
Now you don´t need public charisma to do great politics. But I am surprised that an old-fashioned crowd like GOP voters fall for this big media environment around Vance which is indispensable for the awareness.
Because what would be left of any of those faces if you took away the cameras, turned off the lights, left the hall empty.
Just some random guy who wants to be part of the bigwigs who themselves are pitiful corrupt morons.On this note I am a bit disappointed that Taibbi/Kern do not for once address this truth moving outside the implicitness of the show. Emptiness is of course a natural part of showbusiness. But this used to be known and reflected in the past by the business itself. Not any more.
J.D. Vance, strange that you describe him as some random guy?
Vance is an American politician, lawyer, author, and US Marine veteran.
He comes from a poor, broken, working class background, yet he is a writer, a lawyer, a senator and Trump’s pick as a running mate, does not sound like a nobody to me.Strange that the Republicans keep picking, ridiculing and calling for Biden to quit because there will be no better contender, for Trump, than Biden. Democrats themselves seems eager to get Biden out of the way and they likely have a contender ready.
Apparently only Michelle Obama could according to some earlier polls made beat Trump. She said earlier this year that she is not interested though:Only Michelle Obama bests Trump as an alternative to Biden in 2024
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
Look at Macron that pretty much popped up from nowhere before an election and won. The same thing might occur in the US election.
michael norton
What I meant was appearance as public speaker. None of them is anything special on that level.
GOP demands a leader. To me neither is a leader. I was surprised by that.I find that demand of a leader in itself horrifying and dumb but if I take it seriously – the only one who left an impression on me that night was Teamsters´ Sean O´Brien. (although since he spoke to the crowd not to the cameras he constantly moved his head which was distracting.)
And as Vance´s CV is concernced: I am not impressed.I have no sympathy for Americans who join the USMC in order to fight Arabs 10.000 miles away because they are too stupid and too indoctrinated to scrutinize the idiotic lies they were fed about WMDs in Iraq and ties to Al Quaeda. Someone who does not understand that little about what is truly going on in politics and subsequently participates in the murder of 600.000 Iraqis (whatever humanistic pretext their unit commander provided like building wells or in his unit´s case logistics) is – in my view – not fit to become VP of this war-mongering globe threatening country. Because he has not passed the test of political analyis and maturity.
– When in the States – well before 9/11 admittedly – I knew people who joined the Marines. They then did so because the Army would afterwards pay for their college tuition which they otherwise could not afford. That made sense. It was a clear-cut honest deal. (albeit totally perverse). But they did not join because they believed in some jingoist sick and irrational cause which meant to kill people who posed 0 threat to them and would lack the intelligence to question decisions of that magnitude.
(If you think I sound like a nut, I would understand that. And I sound more condemning than I in fact feel it. I do have a soft spot for that US reality. But we shouldn´t get ourselves deceived by those who instrumentalize that tradition which is highly naive.)
You are responsible for you actions in your own time and you can always choose.
Even after Vance learns it was all a lie (which took him years) he doesn´t abandon the system.
No, after returning from tour instead of fighting war or fighting the USMIC Vance decides to join it. That tells you everything.Don´t get me wrong. Vance is no different than 90% of the uniparty personnel. He is no worse no better. But then, dear public, please do not attribute him qualities that elevate him above those 90% fellow careerists. Would war veteran Matthew Hoh be Trump´s or Biden´s VP? I don´t think so.
Hoh left a good government position out of protest, went to war (yes, stupid too) but then became an anti-war activist. Vance knew no protest. Instead he is calling now for arming Taiwan. Not to mention Israel. Any questions?
Which doesn´t mean to say Vance shouldn´t get a chance. Of course he should. And if he helps us end the Ukraine madness then be it. But Vance will not stop arming Germany with mid-range missiles and moving nukes back to Europe.
So expectations should be limited.I don´t trust the GOP but neither do I trust anyone in Washington.
And even Bernie Sanders by German standards – still – would most likely be a member of former chancellor Merkel´s conservative CDU. Did he oppose arming Ukraine? No. Did he oppose Israel? No.
Sure, Sanders had to choose what enemy to fight. So does Vance. At least I hope Vance will choose someone who is worth his opposition, like Wall Street in Sanders´ case.p.s. I do not see anything extraordinary in Vance writing this book. There are thousands of (bad) books every year which get forgotten (that´s the fate of human cultural production, out of 10.0000 books 1 is worth it). And I am not impressed with his Yale exam either. He is a lawyer in a country with the biggest incarcerated population on this planet (by ratio). Good for him! Did he did pro bono for those inmates? Nope. He instead joined a fascist asshole like Peter Thiel. I have not a particularly high opinion of Chuck Schumer who was yelling „ISRAEL“ in public while 30.000 people had been massacred. Why should I respect Vance more?
Material on the RNC coverage:
Nonetheless as following criticism goes, I would defend Vance. Mr. Kuttner is not convincing. He is always assuming things. Which has been the case with Trump all those years:
““He’s a Fake”: Robert Kuttner on How J.D. Vance Disguises His Anti-Worker Views as Economic Populism”
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/7/16/trump_vanceWhat I found interesting was this exchange. Because the NATION´s editor was at least honest and agreed eventually with what Vance said, despite his opposition to Vance:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/7/18/jd_vance_speech_rnc
(4 parts altogether)And Matt Taibbi/Walter Kern with the empathy I lack, I found this entertaining even touching in a good way:
RNC day 2-4:1/2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVa4qaLZf6o
2/2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZLKojlOVpU
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U38iwvu9smE
4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHXG2fKIyyo
Wrap-up:
https://www.youtube.com/live/w1U47fr0T7MThe underlying problem of US “left” media: None of the newspaper people who are against the GOP openly is able or willing to point out the double standard of the DNC. While Biden initially did do some small things for labour he destroyed it all by boosting Pentagon and letting loose the intelligence services even more. Beside all the other crookedness.
And this I listened to last night. This is much shorter than the above, 37 min. and sound only. :
THE INTERCEPT:
“Trump, Vance, and the New Right at the RNC
Emily Jashinsky of “Counter Points” discusses Republican National Convention takeaways with Ryan Grim”
https://theintercept.com/2024/07/19/deconstructed-rnc-trump-vance-new-right/p.p.s. May be I am wrong but what is so much different here than with the Reaganites? It seems to be a resurrection of that campaign.
Jack
Yes, it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
(However, I am telling myself every morning: Looking back in 10 years we will realize, it did not matter at all. If some factor will matter it is Russian WMDs. Chinese Anti-Ship Missiles. The rising debt of the US. Next to that, the question of POTUS is like choosing chewing-gum flavour.)
AG
Yes too much bureacracy/deep-state people ruling in the background regardless of Democratic or Republican president.
Speaking on WMD, earlier this week US spread the claim that Iran plotted to kill Trump, now they picked up the WMD BS once again.Iran close to ‘nuclear breakout’ – Blinken
It would probably take Tehran “one or two weeks” to get the fissile material to build a weapon, the US Secretary of State has said
https://swentr.site/news/601389-iran-nuclear-breakout-blinken/
Are US/Israel trying to justify an attack on Iran and therefore gaining some votes for Biden?
michael norton
p.s. of course I am being pretty unfair to those joining the Armed Forces because they have hardly much choice.
On that note as a reminder:
See Michael Moore´s “Fahrenheit 9/11”
See last 5 min. TC 1:55:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY3RCGfvVeIJack
“It would probably take Tehran “one or two weeks” ”
Wow, now they really must be running out of ideas.
That would be even clumsy for a bad satire.
p.s. Walter Kirn correctly stated during the RNC that the spinning doctors today don´t even care to create believable lies any more. It´s not about convincing the public as it used to be. Now it´s merely “making shit up” just to keep the show running.“Who’s a Bigger Threat to Democracy—Immigrants, or Billionaires?
Don’t be distracted by the anti-immigrant rhetoric this election. The real impact on democracy comes from moneyed elites.”https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whos-a-bigger-threat-to-democracy-immigrants-or-billionaires/
“(…)
When President Joe Biden said in a phone call to MSNBC’s Morning Joe recently, “I’m getting so frustrated with the elites… the elites of the party. I don’t care what the millionaires think,” former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote that, “It was the first time any modern president has admitted that the elites of the party are the millionaires (and billionaires) who fund it.”While Biden’s comments were in reference to the movement to oust him from the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, it was an important admission about who really wields power in our democracy.
(…)
While billionaires remain influential within the Democratic Party, the last election for which spending records exist shows that moneyed elites overwhelmingly prefer the Republican Party. The nation’s 465 wealthiest people collectively donated $881 billion to influence the 2022 midterm elections, most of it to the GOP.
Now, the richest person in the world—not just in the United States—Elon Musk, has jumped into the 2024 race. His proxy, Donald Trump, in surviving an assassination attempt, earned Musk’s endorsement, as if that was somehow a qualification to run the nation. Musk has vowed to pour $45 million a month into a new Super PAC that’s working to elect Trump. The amount is pocket change for someone currently worth nearly $250 billion. Musk could spend $45 million a day every day this year and it would barely make a dent in his bottom line.
(…)”
