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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#160826: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:33:36 PM

[up][up][up]

We pursue and build up arms not in order to seek conflict, but in order to avoid conflict,” Trump said.

So of course he wants to appoint a guy who wants to bomb the crap out of Iran.

edited 6th Dec '16 11:33:48 PM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
pwiegle Cape Malleum Majorem from Nowhere Special Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Singularity
Cape Malleum Majorem
#160827: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:42:15 PM

Give him five minutes and a different audience, he'll change his tune yet again.

This Space Intentionally Left Blank.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#160828: Dec 6th 2016 at 11:50:51 PM

The crazy thing is that part of me wishes I could believe that Trump's administration won't mess up too badly. But my ability to deny reality just isn't strong enough.

Disgusted, but not surprised
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#160829: Dec 7th 2016 at 12:01:11 AM

But the more details about Trump’s negotiations with Carrier become public, the more hollow his victory appears. First, various outlets reported that the number of jobs saved was closer to 800 than 1,100. Then, Carrier revealed that Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence — the current governor of Indiana — had purchased the company’s continued presence in the state with more than $7 million in tax breaks. Some “consequences.”

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-left-carrier-union-in-the-dark-on-a-shoddy-deal-95fedaedee55#.cic3qwywk

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#160831: Dec 7th 2016 at 12:07:30 AM

@M84: That's the hell of it, and that's my privilege speaking - every time I read transcripts of speeches like that one part of me is like 'but what if it won't be so bad, actually?'. I hate that I can feel that much relief from abject lies.

They say Rule 1 is believe the autocrat, but it really should be watch what they do, not what they say.

It's been fun.
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#160832: Dec 7th 2016 at 12:23:01 AM

7 million USD/year? For 800 jobs? 8750 USD/person? Hm... depends on their yearly income, but it seems worth it.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#160833: Dec 7th 2016 at 12:38:34 AM

@Red Savant

And of course, what Trump has already done is disturbing enough. He's giving positions of power to some of the shadiest, bigoted, and/or blatantly unqualified people imaginable.

Disgusted, but not surprised
RedSavant Since: Jan, 2001
#160834: Dec 7th 2016 at 1:21:41 AM

Exactly. Don't believe the autocrat if he's also a compulsive liar and conman.

It's been fun.
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#160835: Dec 7th 2016 at 2:05:56 AM

Do you all really find this speech "normal"? I honestly think it's more of the same, just with less word salad and changing explicit threats to the media for implicit ones:

“It’s going to be something special. Hopefully, they’re going to write the truth,” Trump said of the media. He added, “We do not know what the page tomorrow will read. But for the first time in a long time, what we do know is that the pages will be authored by each and every one in this room and in our country.”

Then some attempts at jingoism, and finally a bit of assimilating the US population. He's just moving from drunken Mussolini to sober Mussolini.

edited 7th Dec '16 2:07:38 AM by IFwanderer

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#160836: Dec 7th 2016 at 2:42:46 AM

[up] Or going from Mussolini to Berlusconi.

I wonder if we should be asking Italians for advice on dealing with Trump. tongue

Disgusted, but not surprised
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#160837: Dec 7th 2016 at 2:46:55 AM

My father owns a small corporation and my uncle has a start up company. Does this mean I'm part of the minor neo-aristocracy?

The problem with our political terms is that we lack precision. When I say corporations, I mean the 1% wheeler-dealer, tax-dodger, built on untaxed inherited wealth kind...that's actually what the Left has always meant by corporations. Even Karl Marx whose friend Friedrich Engels ran his own factory and subsidized Karl who did not have the benefits of modern university grants...which come to think most students don't today and won't have in the future so we're going to have to find our own rich hippie patron to mooch off...even he didn't lump the general middle-class with the 1%. The middle class of professionals/small businesses/salarymen weren't a significant class at the time he wrote his major books on Capital. They eventually became a much bigger class by the end of the century. Marx did predict that as wealth accumulates this class would disappear...which I guess is what will happen eventually.

And of course when we say corporations we are talking of groups and large entitities, not the random millionaire that pops up here and there. Like say actors who struggled hard, got a Breakthrough Hit and now earn sky-high salaries...that comes from hard work, personal investment and commitment and decades in bad apartments (unless of course those who are born rich) and it's not a significant issue in the wider economy. And of course not everyone who works in a corporation, or everyone in the Board of Directors is bad..."Some I suppose are good people". None of them are like St. Bruce Wayne of course. Even the Koch Brothers for all their scummy libertarian subversion of democracy, do stuff like invest in criminal justice reform. I guess that makes them like Lex Luthor rather than Wayne. Luthor is Peter Thiel.

The fact is corporations are built for one thing only...to make money (and also to sustain the brand, build up IP, increase inherited wealth and prestige...but yeah make money is what it comes down to). Governments are not in the business of making money. They are in the business of using money to do stuff that is for free. Pay for cops, pay for courts, pay for the army, pay for the roads and civic maintenance and so on and so forth. This eventually creates a better society and better conditions for further growth but it's a long-term project with zigs-and-zags. If you divest and weaken government too much and build up corporate power and a privatized society, you will see Refeudalization and Neo-monarchy. One thing we know about monarchs and kingdoms is that they teetered on the edge of bankruptcies and Kings and Queens starved their subjects and fellow nobles to subsidize their lives.

So to answer your question, no...owning a business, and owning a small corporation and a start-up doesn't make you part of the neo-aristocracy. It could actually endanger you because without governments, there's nothing to stop big corporations swallowing up small ones and building monopolies. Antitrust laws are a government service intended to protect businesses...you're welcome.

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#160838: Dec 7th 2016 at 2:52:59 AM

[up][up]More like the other way around, then.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
Geostomp In the name of the POWER, I will punish you! from Arkansas, USA Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
In the name of the POWER, I will punish you!
#160839: Dec 7th 2016 at 3:17:32 AM

What gets me is just how quickly the media has fallen in line to the demands of this obvious con man. He's barely had to try to bully them into submission. They just keep spewing his sales pitch and ignoring even the smallest amount of critical thought would reveal that it was all meaningless. Meanwhile his supporters only get more rabid since they think that this is their chance at revenge on everyone and the perfect excuse to ignore all those inconvenient facts that question their worldview.

It seems like the entire country is submitting to this bastard so quickly in our insatiable urge to return to complacency and there is nothing that can be done about it.

All we can do is wait for the inevitable fall and hope it comes soon enough to prevent the country giving this monstrous crew even more power.

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all" Futurama, Godfellas
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#160840: Dec 7th 2016 at 5:14:09 AM

The media's always been sucking him off, he's just too oblivious and thin-skinned to be aware of it. If the media had been treating him "fairly" he would have been forced to drop out of the GOP primary by last February.

That's the thing about Republicans: it's not enough that their opponents kowtow to the victorious: they must grovel and eat dirt.

thatguythere47 Since: Jul, 2010
#160841: Dec 7th 2016 at 6:41:55 AM

One of the complaints we had with the bush era was there were so many fuck-ups the news didn't have time to cover them all. Trump took that insanity up to 11 and never looked back. Keith olbermann has a 15 minute video that is just "Trump said/did X" and that was from the summer!

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#160842: Dec 7th 2016 at 7:12:20 AM

Honestly, the closer we get to Trump's inauguration, (and I feel dirty just for saying those two words in one sentence,) the more I feel like the USA's become a fucking anime. Specifically, we've flat out turned into, or at least in the process of turning into, the damned Free Planet's Alliance from Legend Of Galactic Heroes. A corrupt douchbag who says whatever the people want to hear has been elected into power, hategroups who act in his name run amok, nationalism is on the verge of running rampant, lies and falsehoods are in danger of trumping the facts, (see what I did there?) and the actual reasonable authority figures are overpowered by the self-serving and jingoistic idjits who only really care about two things: Bombing the shit out of their enemies and winning the next election. We have become or are becoming the FPA made reality, and it's fucking disgusting.

edited 7th Dec '16 7:14:08 AM by kkhohoho

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#160843: Dec 7th 2016 at 7:31:31 AM

That's not even the half of it: the most disgusting irony is that I can easily find you people that explicitly voted for Trump thinking they were electing a Reinhard, when all they're gonna get is a Trunicht.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#160844: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:01:40 AM

I'm still mad about it. This election's made me a bitter, moodier, mildly hateful person. It badly shook my general optimism about the future and leaves me thinking absolutely vile things about the absolutely vile people who voted for this dickhead.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#160845: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:41:24 AM

Trump picks Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as ambassador to China. A fairly normal choice, though something rubs me a bit wrong about him putting so many currently serving governors into executive branch positions; is he trying to remove disloyal governors (ie Nikki Haley) from office in an effort to get loyalists installed in their place?

Also General John Kelly is in charge of the Department of Homeland security. Also a fairly normal choice, but Trump is appointing an awfully large number of senior military personnel to his cabinet; does he not understand the concept of civilian control of the military?

edited 7th Dec '16 8:44:03 AM by CaptainCapsase

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#160846: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:43:55 AM

[up] Would it even work like that? I'd think removing a serving governor would just mean the Lieutenant Governor takes over or a special election is held.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#160847: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:44:25 AM

[up] If the Lieutenant governor is more favorable to Trump that the sitting governor...

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#160848: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:45:25 AM

[up][up][up] Kim Reynolds, the current Lieutenant Governor, doesn't seem too Pro-Trump to me. The only thing I can see is that she disregarded Trump's Sexual Comments when that was a thing (although she found them unacceptable), but considering most Republicans did that anyways, that doesn't paint much of a picture of her being a Pro-Trump puppet.

edited 7th Dec '16 8:46:02 AM by DingoWalley1

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#160849: Dec 7th 2016 at 8:52:03 AM

[up] I suppose, though it would probably be easier for her to be primaried than the sitting governor. Same goes for Haley's Lt Governor.

That being said, Branstad was one of the most supportive establishment Republicans, so it seems more like a reward for loyalty than an attempt at Kicked Upstairs.

edited 7th Dec '16 8:53:42 AM by CaptainCapsase


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