Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Sat May 26, 2018 12:04 pm

DONALD TRUMP SAYS ‘OUR ANCESTORS TAMED A CONTINENT' AND ‘WE ARE NOT GOING TO APOLOGIZE FOR AMERICA’
BY JASON LE MIERE ON 5/25/18 AT 12:44 PM

President Donald Trump said at a Naval Academy commencement address Friday that “our ancestors tamed a continent,” adding that “we are not going to apologize for America.”

"Together there is nothing Americans can't do, absolutely nothing," Trump told 2018 graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy. “In recent years, and even decades, too many people have forgotten that truth. They've forgotten that our ancestors trounced an empire, tamed a continent, and triumphed over the worst evils in history."

He added: "America is the greatest fighting force for peace, justice and freedom in the history of the world. We have become a lot stronger lately. We are not going to apologize for America. We are going to stand up for America."

Before Europeans arrived in what became the United States, Native Americans occupied the land but were forced to relinquish territory as the new Americans pushed westward as part of what was termed “manifest destiny.” In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which led to the deaths of thousands of Native Americans.

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President Donald Trump speaks at the commissioning and graduation ceremony for U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2018 at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., May 25, 2018.
REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Trump previously caused controversy when he held an event honoring Native Americans in the Oval Office last November with a portrait of Jackson in the background. Trump has regularly praised Jackson, although at times with a questionable grasp of history. He has also repeatedly referred to Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has claimed Native American heritage," as "Pocahontas."

"A nation must have pride in its history to have confidence in its future," Trump said Friday. The president's comments mirrored a tweet he sent out in March celebrating National Agriculture Day.

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"Our Nation was founded by farmers," he wrote. "Our independence was won by farmers. And our continent was tamed by farmers. Our farmers always lead the way -- we are PROUD of them, and we are DELIVERING for them! #NationalAgricultureDay

Trump added Friday it was a great time for the graduates to be joining the Navy. "We are witnessing the great reawakening of the American spirit and of American might," he said. "We have rediscovered our identity, regained our stride and we're proud again."

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ta ... eekTwitter

That's called keeping the 'John Wayne' vote jazzed up.

Perhaps he's right, perhaps there's no point in asking forgiveness for the unforgivable.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 13, 2018 10:29 pm

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Chaos in the Imperial Big House
“The Trump experience has plunged corporate ideology and war rationales into disarray.”

Donald Trump, the arch racist usurper of the Republican Party, is tearing the ruling class consensus to shreds, inflicting bigger shocks to the imperial system by accident, impulse and ignorance than any conceivable “progressive” elected U.S. president could achieve on purpose. In the space of a few weeks, Trump has 1) threatened to disrupt corporate global supply chains through his in-out stance on NAFTA; 2) forced Washington’s European junior imperial partners to reconsider their subservience to U.S. foreign policy and their vulnerability to U.S.-controlled financial institutions in the wake of Trump’s rejection of the Iran deal and his tirades at the G7 summit in Canada; and 3) discarded 70 years of Uncle Sam’s “Comply or Die” dictum towards North Korea, thus consigning the whole “axis of evil” designation to the dustbin.

Trump is not causing chaos in the imperial Big House because he wants to hasten the demise of U.S. imperialism. He is an intellectually and emotionally retarded spawn of super-privilege trying to stamp his orange imprint on history -- “Trump did this, and it was the greatest thing ever!” -- like the big “T” on the those buildings he doesn’t actually own. The man, literally, knows not what he does -- and, therefore, cannot be counted on to repeat himself, or to follow through on any action with logic and consistency, for good or ill. However, the net effect of Trump’s crazed foreign policy has been to raise urgent questions, among foreign elites and general populations alike, of U.S. fitness for global hegemony. Trump’s behavior could deliver a coup de grace to an already severely frayed global capitalist consensus on U.S. world leadership, significantly weakening the potency of U.S. imperialism -- even as Trump aligns more closely with the Israeli apartheid state and the Gulf monarchies and conspires to force regime change in Venezuela.

“The net effect of Trump’s crazed foreign policy has been to raise urgent questions of U.S. fitness for global hegemony.”

Domestically, the Trump experience has plunged corporate ideology and war rationales into disarray, even as his administration (with Democratic help) has delivered the biggest corporate tax windfalls and military budgets ever.

Contradictions abound -- but, of course, the accumulation of contradictions is what ultimately erodes the whole edifice. Donald Trump, incapable of perceiving beyond surface appearances, thinks a “strong” foreign policy means blood-curdling threats. So he threatens North Korea with “fire and fury.” When Kim Jong-un comes to the table with his South Korean partner, as they collaborated to do, Trump believes his threat has worked, and that the U.S. acted from strength. And then he agrees to “leave the past behind ” and to enter what will become years-long negotiations on “denuclearization,” with “security guarantees” for the North, while immediately halting U.S.-South Korean military exercises that Trump called “provocative.” Trump looks forward to an eventual withdrawal of troops from the South. "At some point I hope it will be, but it's not right now."

If the leader of North Korea -- the original “pariah” state demonized and placed beyond the pale of U.S.-decreed legitimacy -- is now just another negotiating partner, and U.S. troop withdrawal from the South is a principled goal, then the “axis of evil” era is over and the rationale for U.S. troops and bases virtually everywhere in the world collapses -- as is well understood by U.S. imperial strategists, who are in deep distress.

“Trump’s behavior could deliver a coup de grace to an already severely frayed global capitalist consensus on U.S. world leadership.”

So are the Democrats. Since Trump won the GOP nomination, they have become overt partisans of the War Party. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, a former co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, sounded like some cracker mistress in the Big House, carping that Trump had “elevated North Korea to the level of the United States while preserving the regime’s status quo.” Pelosi showed her racist, imperialist inner core, recoiling at the very idea of equality among nations and peoples, and condemning Trump for appearing to abandon the goal of regime change in the North. (See Ajamu Baraka , “The Democrats Out-Right the Right on North Korean Summit .”)

Pelosi and her House minions have long voted to fund Republican and Democratic wars, while pretending to be peaceniks. Trump’s capture of the GOP presidential nomination drew them out of the closet, in full armored gear, screaming “Russia, Russia, Russia” like banshees -- a clear indication of crisis among the Democrats’ ruling class masters.

“If the leader of North Korea is now just another negotiating partner, and U.S. troop withdrawal from the South is a principled goal, then the ‘axis of evil’ era is over.”

Trump campaigned in 2016 for normal relations with Russia, an end to the U.S. regime change offensive, and opposition to so-called “free” trade, thus uniting most of the ruling class against him. It turned out that Trump’s wholly unexpected appeal for peaceful relations with Russia did not deter huge majorities of Republicans from voting for him in the primaries and the general election. The political conclusion was inescapable: If white Republicans were not wedded to the permanent war agenda -- or cared more about maintaining white supremacy at home than funding endless hostilities abroad -- then where was the mass constituency for the bipartisan War Party? If Trump’s “deplorables” weren’t wedded to the War Party, then who was?

Trump’s surprise election threw the bulk of the elite, the corporate media, the military-industrial complex, and the spooks of the intelligence agencies, into panic, as they confronted a crisis of legitimacy for the Warfare State. Now firmly aligned with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, their response was to pre-empt Trump’s threatened rapprochement with Russia with a massive anti-Putin campaign. The elites realized they had to recreate -- on the fly, with no factual basis -- a war fervor that no longer existed among the masses of people, through Russiagate. In the chaotic process, they have further delegitimized virtually every U.S. institution, all the while putting the onus for the damage on the Vladimir Putin.

“If Trump’s “deplorables” weren’t wedded to the War Party, then who was?”

(They have even made the term “oligarchs” a household word -- one that can just as easily be applied to the U.S. ruling class as to Putin’s rich friends in Russia. In the long term, this is not a good thing for rich capitalists, as a class.)

Trump has vacillated on “free trade,” speaking out of whichever side of his mouth works quicker. But his ambivalence and profound ignorance have put the NAFTA negotiations in total disarray. According the New York Times , Trump sent “a 24-year-old deputy to meet with a delegation that was expected to include representatives from more than 50 of the largest American companies and organizations, including Walmart, U.P.S., the Walt Disney Company, General Electric, General Motors, Caterpillar and Boeing” -- the titans of industry to whom both corporate parties pay homage, but whom Trump is disrespecting, big time. Corporate supply chains affecting trillions of dollars and millions of (mostly Global South, super-exploitive) jobs hang in the balance. The National Association of Manufactures, whose pronouncements were gospel to Republicans and most Democrats in previous eras, can’t make a NAFTA wheel turn in Trump’s administration. Much more crucially, the advent of Trump has revealed the stark reality that there is no mass base for “free trade”-- a euphemism for allowing the ruling class to do whatever they want with their money and everyone’s jobs. Support for “free trade” is an illusion conjured by the two corporate parties, who are writhing in a crisis of legitimacy.

“The National Association of Manufactures can’t make a NAFTA wheel turn in Trump’s administration.”

But such crises don’t bring down the system, on their own. Only a people’s movement can do that.

The real crisis for the War Party arrives when masses of people show up in the streets to demand an end to the Permanent Warfare State.

The real crisis for the Black Mass Incarceration State arrives when the targeted population no longer recognizes the legitimacy of the police, and moves to resist and replace the cops with their own security forces.

The real crisis for the Lords of Capital arrives when the people demand nationalization of the banks and the permanent dethroning of finance capital, the actual ruling class.

Trump, of course, wants none of that. But, under his presidency, the contradictions of late stage imperial capitalism are becoming both much more intense, and more obvious to folks on the ground. And that’s scaring the hell out of the ruling class -- which will make them a lot meaner.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/chaos ... -big-house

Perhaps a bit optimistic, but mebbe not.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 21, 2018 8:54 pm

Melania dons jacket saying 'I really don't care. Do U?' ahead of border visit

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snip

As the first lady boarded her plane from Andrews Air Force Base, she wore an olive green jacket. The back of the jacket read: "I really don't care. Do U?" in white graffiti-style lettering. Trump was not wearing the jacket when she landed in McAllen, Texas.

The $39 jacket is last season Zara.
The Daily Mail first reported the jacket, which was spotted by the press traveling with the first lady but impossible to read without a long-range camera lens.

The first lady's team insisted that there was no hidden meaning behind the sartorial choice.
"It's a jacket. There was no hidden message. After today's important visit to Texas, I hope the media isn't going to choose to focus on her wardrobe," East Wing communications director Stephanie Grisham told CNN in a statement.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/21/politics ... index.html

Been pretty obvious that the 1st Lady doesn't care for the 'job'. Regardless as to the motivation the message is plain, "Let them eat cake."

Jfc, I'm supposed to be writing a political allegory, how can I keep up?
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 23, 2018 4:01 pm

Ex-director of the CIA lashes out against Trump: "He's incompetent"

June 23, 2018

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John Brennan, former director of the CIA. Photo: Archive

Former CIA Director John Brennan said in a tweet Saturday that the incompetence, lack of principles and ethics of President Donald Trump, harm the interests of the United States .

The former official said that the president's desperation and fear are palpable and he wonders when the members of his cabinet, the inner circle and the Republican leadership will realize that his behavior seriously harms the nation.

Brennan, who led the espionage agency from March 2013 until January 20, 2017, during the Barack Obama administration, responded on Twitter to an earlier message from Trump about a decrease in popular support for research on the alleged interference by Russia in the November 2016 elections in collusion with the Republicans.

As a result of that investigation, Trump's former leader, Paul Manafort, has been in prison since the beginning of June, accused of a series of financial criminal charges and obstruction of justice, pending trial, after the prosecutor Special Robert Mueller accused him of manipulating witnesses in this investigation.

In recent weeks, Trump has reiterated that the group led by Mueller is conducting a real witch hunt and that at the beginning of his second year of work he can not yet verify the accusations about compromises between the president's team and Moscow officials in the 2016 presidential elections.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2018/ ... y5qolVKiM8

Google Translator

Straight from the hosses mouth. Of course if Trump bombs some people all is well, he's being 'presidential'. And I think "fear and desperation" is accurate.He's known he was outta his depth since Day1 and is bullshitting his way thru with the tools he's always used.

Brennan just pining for a more competent warlord.'Imperialism by whim' ain't his style.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:26 pm

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Trump versus the rest
Posted Jun 22, 2018 by Prabhat Patnaik

Originally published: NewsClick.in (June 14, 2018) |

Donald Trump’s leaving the G-7 summit without budging an iota on protectionism is indicative of the disunity among the leading capitalist countries on the strategy to overcome the capitalist crisis. Trump has decided that the U.S. would go its own way, by enlarging the fiscal deficit, not just for giving tax concessions to the corporates, which would have little demand-stimulating effect anyway, but also for increasing government expenditure which would have this effect, and at the same time by protecting the domestic market.

These two strands of Trump’s strategy have to go together. In fact in the absence of protectionism, any fiscal stimulus within the U.S. economy, such as what larger government expenditure would provide, would leak out of that country by creating larger import demand for other countries’ goods, in which case the U.S. would be generating employment not at home but abroad, and also incurring a debt to those very countries for doing so. But a larger fiscal deficit that is combined with protectionism ensures that jobs are created at home and no external debt is incurred for the purpose.

Trump can afford to undertake this strategy because of the position of the U.S. in the capitalist world. Any other country pursuing such a strategy of enlarged fiscal deficit along with protectionism would witness an outflow of finance as the “investors’ confidence” in that country would be undermined. But the U.S. is on a different footing: its currency is still considered “as good as gold” despite not being officially so ordained (as it was under the Bretton Woods System); and it constitutes for a variety of reasons the home base of finance, from where, unless there are strong provocations, finance would not like to move out. Trump is thus exploiting this position of the U.S. as the Monseigneur of the capitalist world, together no doubt with some increase in the U.S. interest rate, to push through a strategy for U.S. revival alone, with no thought whatsoever for the revival of the capitalist world as a whole.

What is wrong with this strategy is not the usual baseless claim like “protectionism is bad”, that “free trade is good”, or that this strategy represents “nationalism” which is reactionary as opposed to “internationalism” which is progressive. What is wrong with this strategy is that it would not work even for the U.S. (though it may appear at present to be succeeding), let alone for the capitalist world as a whole.

This whole discourse about “nationalism” versus “internationalism” is not only analytically wrong, because these terms cannot be defined without reference to their class content (“nationalism” for instance is not one homogeneous category and Ho Chi Minh’s “nationalism” is quite different from that of Hitler); it is also ethically unfounded: if higher levels of employment could be achieved everywhere, together with higher levels of welfare expenditure, by each country following a “nationalist” strategy, as compared to a situation where they are trying in vain to pursue an “internationalist” strategy, then cavilling at such a “nationalist” strategy is clearly indefensible.

At present the Trump strategy, many point out, appears to be working in the U.S. The unemployment rate is officially down to around 4 percent. Even though the work-force participation rate continues to be below what it was before the 2008 crisis, so that, on the assumption of an unchanged work-force participation rate, the unemployment rate would be just over 6 percent, this rate itself, they suggest, represents a decline compared to a few years ago. At the same time, though Trump has used the fiscal deficit to please the capitalists through tax-cuts, he has not, they suggest, stinted too much on social spending. And yet, notwithstanding these supposed boom conditions, the inflation rate is quite low, and the dollar continues to be strong.

Let us, for argument’s sake, assume that all these claims about the success of trump’s strategy are true, though a moment’s reflection would show that all of them cannot possibly be simultaneously true. It is impossible in other words to have a co-existence, except only transitorily, of the following four characteristics: a low unemployment rate, a large fiscal deficit, a policy of protectionism, and a low inflation rate. The first three of these would cause excess demand pressures that would push up the inflation rate, which would no longer remain low. But let us assume that all four claimed features are true.

But all these features are only the first round results of the Trump strategy. Other countries, those hit by U.S. protectionism, would not just sit back and accept the increase in unemployment which the U.S. strategy of going it alone is exporting to them. They would soon start taking offsetting measures through larger fiscal deficits of their own together with the necessary protectionism. In their case however such measures would entail a flight of finance, as they lack the Monseigneur status that the U.S. enjoys. They would therefore either have to put controls on financial flows, i.e. “capital controls”; or jack up their interest rates to entice finance not to leave their shores.

Capital controls however would strike at the very root of the current globalization. It is noteworthy that even Trump with all his protectionist measures against the imports of goods and services, has not put restrictions against the free flows of finance. Likewise, the other capitalist countries would be loath to restricting capital flows across their borders. They would therefore resort to interest rate hikes to prevent any outflows of finance.

Such hikes in interest rates would nullify to an extent their efforts at expanding demand to bring down increase in unemployment because of U.S. protectionism; and it would also bring about a corresponding increase in the U.S. interest rates. What appears at present to be a “trade war” started by Trump, and is being discussed, and derided by his opponents, as such, would soon take the form of competitive hikes in interest rates, of which the current rise in the U.S. interest rates would have been the first symptom. And such hikes would nullify for all capitalist countries taken together, including for the United States, whatever gain in employment an enlarged fiscal deficit and protectionism might have caused.

What the current conjuncture clearly shows is that it is impossible to overcome the capitalist crisis without impeding free global financial flows, which means shaking off the hegemony of globalized finance. The Trump strategy does not aim at shaking off this hegemony; and unless the other capitalist countries are willing to shake off this hegemony, they would all be engaged in a competitive struggle of interest rate hikes which would collectively entail no improvement in the situation of the world capitalist economy.

There are only two possible logical ways in which the world capitalist economy can come out of its current protracted crisis. One is for a co-ordinated fiscal stimulus by all advanced countries, of the kind that Keynes and a group of German trade unionists had suggested during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This of course would be stoutly opposed by international finance capital, which opposes all direct State activism that does not work through itself; but unity among the leading nation-States, which could, through such unity, act as a surrogate world State, could conceivably overcome this opposition. But nobody in G-7 is even talking about this strategy, which means that it is not on the agenda of the capitalist world. Any attempt at pursuing it, since it would have to overcome the opposition of international finance capital, which capitalism is incapable of doing, would necessarily have to entail a transition beyond capitalism, i. e. a transcendence of capitalism in the very process of overcoming its crisis.

The second logical way is if particular countries decided to go it alone, as Trump is trying to do. But for this to succeed, capital controls would have to be put into place, for, otherwise, the prevention of capital outflows as a fall-out of such going it alone (which would necessarily require fiscal activism that finance is always opposed to) would push the country, and its rivals, into competitive interest rate hikes, which subvert, both individually for particular countries and collectively for the capitalist world as a whole, the prospects of economic revival.

Trump’s apparent economic success with the U.S. economy, if at all there is any success, which itself is doubtful, represents therefore only the first stage in this competitive struggle; this success is bound to get negated as others react to his moves. Since neither Trump nor his rivals are even thinking of any restrictions on capital flows, which would undermine the hegemony of international finance capital and is ruled out for this reason, the structural crisis of capitalism is bound to continue, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary.

https://mronline.org/2018/06/22/trump-versus-the-rest/

This is plausible. And when push come to shove, politics by other means.Seventy years of careful policy keeping the other powers in this Delian League shot to hell cause the guy gets off on applause. Who now believes this is what the ruling class fixers had in mind?
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Sat Jun 30, 2018 1:17 pm

'Stuttering John' Prank Call to Trump May Be Funny, but the White House's Lax Communications Security Is Not

Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post/Getty Images
By KEVIN KELLEHER June 29, 2018
Prank calls have long been the domain of of radio shock jocks and bored juveniles. But when one gets through to the president on Air Force One, it highlights for the rest of us the lax security that the White House is taking in securing the president’s communications.

John Melendez, a comedian known as “Stuttering John” who was once a regular on the Howard Stern Show, claimed during his podcast to have reached President Trump Wednesday night while posing as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat who has been outspoken on immigration reform.
The recording of the call features a voice that sounds like Trump’s discussing immigration policy with the fake Menendez.



http://fortune.com/2018/06/29/stutterin ... urity-not/

And so on, a fine fit of liberal grousing. Just one more item of proof that the rich cannot manage their own affairs and when they do things often go awry. So why do we allow them to manage ours?
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 05, 2018 1:05 pm

"Why Can't the US Just Simply Invade?" Officials Say Trump Pushed U.S. Military Overthrow in Venezuela
"Happy Independence Day. Our f*%king madman in the White House really wants to go to war in Venezuela."

byJon Queally, staff writer
70 Comments

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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks to the media following a meeting with UN chief Ban Ki-moon at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York on July 28, 2015 in New York City. Maduro is in New York to speak with the UN about his country's escalating border dispute with Guyana. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Surrounded by his top military aides in a White House meeting less than a year ago, the Associated Press on Wednesday reports that President Donald Trump wanted to know why the U.S. military couldn't "just simply invade" the country of Venezuela.

Based on the account of "a senior administration official familiar with what was said," AP reports that the president's comments "stunned" those at the meeting, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, both of whom have now left the administration.

From AP:

In an exchange that lasted around five minutes, McMaster and others took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments to punish President Nicolas Maduro for taking Venezuela down the path of dictatorship, according to the official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

But Trump pushed back. Although he gave no indication he was about to order up military plans, he pointed to what he considered past cases of successful gunboat diplomacy in the region, according to the official, like the invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s.

While some of those around him continued attempts to ignore or dissuade the president, reportedly Trump could not let the idea go and AP cites "two high-ranking Colombian officials" who confirmed that he brought the idea of a military overthrow up with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos during a closed-door meeting in August of 2017.


A month later, during a dinner with other Latin American leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, the reporting says that Trump—despite warnings not to do so—once more brought up the subject.

"The U.S. official said Trump was specifically briefed not to raise the issue and told it wouldn't play well," AP reports, "but the first thing the president said at the dinner was, 'My staff told me not to say this.' Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn't want a military solution, according to the official, who added that each leader told Trump in clear terms they were sure. Eventually, McMaster would pull aside the president and walk him through the dangers of an invasion, the official said."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/ ... ialnetwork

Reminds me of "Happy Independence Day. Our f*%king madman in the White House really wants to go to war in Syria." from a few years back & "Happy Independence Day. Our f*%king madman in the White House really wants to go to war in Libya." from a few years before that. Remember those?

Thought not.

That said, this dated revelation again reveals a mind informed by CNN & FOX. Perhaps the History Channel too, though there might be attention span issues with that.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:01 pm

DONALD TRUMP DIAPER-CLAD 'BABY' BLIMP GETS APPROVAL TO FLY OVER LONDON DURING PRESIDENT'S VISIT NEXT WEEK
BY JASON LE MIERE ON 7/5/18 AT 9:28 AM

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Donald Trump will be greeted by a giant, unflattering orange blimp when he makes his first visit to the United Kingdom as president next week. London Mayor Sadiq Khan gave his approval Thursday for the so-called “Trump baby” blimp to fly over the Houses of Parliament on the morning of July 13, when the president is scheduled to be in the capital.

“The Mayor supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms,” a spokesperson for the mayor said. "His city operations team have met with the organizers and have given them permission to use Parliament Square Garden as a grounding point for the blimp.”

The 6-meter-tall blimp, which depicts an angry Trump wearing a diaper, has been organized by a group dubbing themselves anti-fascist activists. The costs of flying the giant balloon have been covered by more than $21,000 raised from a crowdfunding campaign.

“When Trump visits the UK on Friday the 13th of July this year, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking...and laughing at him,” the crowdfunding page said.

Thousands of people signed a petition calling for allowing the blimp to take flight during Trump’s visit.

“We didn’t get off to the best start with the mayor’s office over this, who originally told us that they didn’t recognize Trump Baby as legitimate protest,” one of the activists behind the stunt, Leo Murray, told Sky News.

"But following a huge groundswell of public support for our plan, it looks like City Hall has rediscovered its sense of humor. Trump Baby will fly!” he said.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-ba ... ce=Twitter

Yeah, I know...but at least it ain't the Dems......It's gonna really piss him off, mebbe he'll declare war on Britain.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 17, 2018 1:44 pm

Helsinki Talks - How Trump Tries To Rebalance The Global Triangle
The reactions of the U.S. polite to yesterday's press conference of President Trump and President Putin are highly amusing. The media are losing their mind. Apparently it was Pearl Harbor, Gulf of Tonkin and 9/11 all in one day. War will commence tomorrow. But against whom?

Behind the panic lie competing views of Grand Strategy.

Rereading the transcript of the 45 minutes long press conference (vid) I find it rather boring. Trump did not say anything that he had not said before. There was little mention of what the two presidents had really talked about and what they agreed upon. Later on Putin said that the meeting was more substantive than he expected. As the two spoke alone there will be few if any leaks. To understand what happened we will have to wait and see how the situations in the various conflict areas, in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere, will now develop.

The 'liberal' side of the U.S. did its best to prevent the summit. The recent Mueller indictment was timed to sabotage the talks. Before the meeting in Helsinki the New York Times retweeted its three weeks old homophobic comic flick that shows Trump and Putin as lovers. It is truly a disgrace for the Grey Lady to publish such trash. After the press conference the usual anti-Trump operatives went ballistic:

John O. Brennan @JohnBrennan - 15:52 UTC - 16 Jul 2018
Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???

Senator John McCain released a scathing statement:

... “President Trump proved not only unable, but unwilling to stand up to Putin. He and Putin seemed to be speaking from the same script as the president made a conscious choice to defend a tyrant against the fair questions of a free press, and to grant Putin an uncontested platform to spew propaganda and lies to the world.
...
“No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant. Not only did President Trump fail to speak the truth about an adversary; but speaking for America to the world, our president failed to defend all that makes us who we are—a republic of free people dedicated to the cause of liberty at home and abroad. ...
These imbeciles do not understand the realism behind Trump's grand policy. Trump knows the heartland theory of Halford John Mackinder. He understands that Russia is the core of the Eurasian landmass. That landmass, when politically united, can rule the world. A naval power, the U.S. now as the UK before it, can never defeat it. Trump's opponents do not get what Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor of President Carter, explained in his book The Grant Chessboard (pdf). They do not understand why Henry Kissinger advised Trump to let go of Crimea.

Trump himself professed his view (vid) of the big picture and of relations with Russia in a 2015 press conference:

"I know Putin. And I tell you that we can get along with Putin. Putin has no respect for President Obama. Big Problem, big problem. And you know Russia has been driven - you know I always heard, for years I have heard - one of the worst things that can happen to our country, is when Russia ever gets driven to China. We have driven them together - with the big oil deals that are being made. We have driven them together. That's a horrible thing for this country. We have made them friends because of incompetent leadership. I believe I would get along very nicely with Putin- okay? And I mean where we have the strength. I don't think we need the sanctions. I think that we would get along very, very well. I really believe that. I think we would get along with a lot of countries that we don't get along with today. And that we would be a lot richer for it than we are today.
There are three great geographic power-centers in the world. The Anglo-American transatlantic one which is often called 'the west'. Mackinder's heartland, which is essentially Russia as the core of the Eurasian landmass, and China, which historically rules over Asia. Any alliance of two of those power-centers can determine the fate of the world.

Kissinger's and Nixon's biggest political success was to separate China from the Soviet Union. That did not make China an ally of the United States, but it broke the Chinese-Soviet alliance. It put the U.S. into a premier position, a first among equals. But even then Kissinger already foresaw the need to balance back to Russia:

On Feb. 14, 1972, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger met to discuss Nixon’s upcoming trip to China. Kissinger, who had already taken his secret trip to China to begin Nixon’s historic opening to Beijing, expressed the view that compared with the Russians, the Chinese were “just as dangerous. In fact, they’re more dangerous over a historical period.”
Kissinger then observed that “in 20 years your successor, if he’s as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese.” He argued that the United States, as it sought to profit from the enmity between Moscow and Beijing, needed “to play this balance-of-power game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to discipline the Russians.” But in the future, it would be the other way around.

It took 45 years, not 20 as Kissinger foresaw, to rebalance the U.S. position.

After the Cold War the U.S. thought it had won the big ideological competition of the twentieth century. In its exuberance of the 'unilateral moment' it did everything possible to antagonize Russia. Against its promises it extended NATO to Russia's border. It wanted to be the peerless supreme power of the world. At the same time it invited China into the World Trade Organisation and thereby enabled its explosive economic growth. This unbalanced policy took its toll. The U.S. lost industrial capacity to China and at the same time drove Russia into China's hands. Playing the global hegemon turned out to be very expensive. It led to the 2006 crash of the U.S. economy and its people have since seen little to no gains. Trump wants to revert this situation by rebalancing towards Russia while opposing China's growing might.

Not everyone shares that perspective. As security advisor to Jimmy Carter Brzezinski continued the Nixon/Kissinger policy towards China. The 'one China policy', disregarding Taiwan for better relations with Beijing, was his work. His view is still that the U.S. should ally with China against Russia:

"It is not in our interest to antagonize Beijing. It is much better for American interests to have the Chinese work closely with us, thereby forcing the Russians to follow suit if they don’t want to be left out in the cold. That constellation gives the U.S. the unique ability to reach out across the world with collective political influence."
But why would China join such a scheme? Brzezinski's view of Russia was always clouded. His family of minor nobles has its roots in Galicia, now in west-Ukraine. They were driven from Poland when the Soviets extended their realm into the middle of Europe. To him Russia will always be the antagonist.

Kissinger's view is more realistic. He sees that the U.S. must be more balanced in its relations:

n the emerging multipolar order, Russia should be perceived as an essential element of any new global equilibrium, not primarily as a threat to the United States.
Kissinger is again working to divide Russia from China. But this time around it is Russia that needs to be elevated, that needs to become a friend.

Trump is following Kissinger's view. He wants good relations with Russia to separate Russia from China. He (rightly) sees China as the bigger long term (economic) danger to the United States. That is the reason why he, immediately after his election, started to beef up the relations with Taiwan and continues to do so. (Listen to Peter Lee for the details). That is the reason why he tries to snatch North Korea from China's hands. That is the reason why he makes nice with Putin.

It is not likely that Trump will manage to pull Russia out of its profitable alliance with China. It is true that China's activities, especially in the Central Asian -stans, are a long term danger to Russia. China's demographic and economic power is far greater than Russia's. But the U.S. has never been faithful in its relations with Russia. It would take decades to regain its trust. China on the other hand stands to its commitments. China is not interested in conquering the 'heartland'. It has bigger fish to fry in south-east Asia, Africa and elsewhere. It is not in its interest to antagonize Russia.

The maximum Trump can possibly achieve is to neutralize Russia while he attempts to tackle China's growing economic might via tariffs, sanctions and by cuddling Taiwan, Japan and other countries with anti-Chinese agendas.

The U.S. blew its 'unilateral moment'. Instead of making friends with Russia it drove it into China's hands. Hegemonic globalization and unilateral wars proved to be too expensive. The U.S. people received no gains from it. That is why they elected Trump.

Trump is doing his best to correct the situation. For the foreseeable future the world will end up with three power centers. Anglo-America, Russia and China. (An aging and disunited Europe will flap in the winds.) These power centers will never wage direct war against each other, but will tussle at the peripheries. Korea, Iran and the Ukraine will be centers of these conflicts. Interests in Central Asia, South America and Africa will also play a role.

Trump understands the big picture. To 'Make America Great Again' he needs to tackle China and to prevent a deeper Chinese-Russian alliance. It's the neo-conservatives and neo-liberals who do not get it. They are still stuck in Brzezinski's Cold War view of Russia. They still believe that economic globalization, which helped China to regain its historic might, is the one and true path to follow. They do not perceive at all the damage they have done to the American electorate.

For now Trump's view is winning. But the lunatic reactions to the press conference show that the powers against him are still strong. They will sabotage him wherever possible. The big danger for now is that their view of the world might again raise to power.

Posted by b on July 17, 2018 at 07:41 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/he ... .html#more

Well, b be off his meds today. The contention that Trump has a 'strategic vision' other than self-aggrandizement is ridiculous. As ridiculous as claiming the Russians affected the US election.And endorsing Kissinger, jfc. And I think what might be generally lumped together as 'isolationism' was a minor theme in the motivation of Trump voters. They wanted 'change' and didn't care how they got it. If the change involved racism & xenophobia, fine, they knew how to do that. But that had to be activated. The vast majority of white folks do not sit around thinking "I hate black people, I hate Mexicans". That shit is generally dormant, layers below but always available, the residue of a racist past. For it to become active it must be stirred. The media and politicians do the stirring, operationally for rating or partisan politics but underlying and motivating is class. Class and capitalism are self-reinforcing.

All well and good, the spectacle Democratic & Republican warmongers together demanding that the findings of 17 bloody-handed dope-dealing fascist spook agencies be sanctified oughta sort the sheep from the goats.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:52 pm

Trump says he accepts US intel on Russia — then adds it ‘could be other people also’
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 07/17/18 03:05 PM EDT 7,778
2,268
President Trump on Tuesday sought to walk back his widely-criticized remarks at a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin a day earlier, saying he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

But Trump muddled the walk-back by saying that “other people” also could have been involved, a statement similar to remarks he’s made in the past casting doubt on Russia’s involvement.

“I accept our intelligence community's conclusion that Russia's meddling in the 2016 election took place,” Trump said, reading from a prepared statement in front of reporters at the White House.

But he added: “Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.”

(and so on...)

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... d-be-other

So on the one hand we got the prez sowing distrust in the government cops. On the other hand we got the proxies of the government cops screaming that any criticism of Amerika is treason. We got the Chief Executive imposing a trade war on capitalists who really want no part of it. Half of his cabinet under investigation for graft and excess. And still the Dems couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were on the sole.

Dunno about ya'll but I love a train wreck. Booj democracy is DEVO.

What I'm most curious about is how those folks in the MAGA hats feel about it, gotta be some cognitive dissonance going on.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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