- 26 Jun 2019 21:39
#15014537
As I said to Torus34, it's more or less a waste of time debating you on this point. I am an American and you are not. If it is your intent to persuade American voters, it will fail for reasons that may not be obvious to you. I will give you one explanation (not an argument I care to debate), which you can file away for future reference when you feel a bit more reflective or more sincerely interested in why a majority of people in the US will not accept your opinion.
In US politics, the media is privately owned. We do have National Public Radio (NPR) and a Public Broadcast System (PBS) that are publicly owned and funded. However, they do not have that much reach. They are nothing like BBC, for example. We also have Cable Special Access Networks or C-SPAN. However, most people get their information from privately owned (including publicly traded) for-profit media outlets. There are six major media outlets that dominate all the smaller ones. In American political parlance, these outlets are chock-full of center-left welfare state advocates. The ratio is more than 9:1 left leaning, again in American parlance. However, in being for a welfare state, that does not mean that they are exclusively Democrats, as some Republicans are for corporate welfare, farm welfare, etc. It's basically a system that is tied to the federal reserve, major banks, major corporations and major media outlets. They are for-profit. They aim to make money. In politics, they tend to push the Democratic party line 9:1. They collude with the Democratic party. They take money from the Democratic party and its personnel. They give money to the Democratic party and its personnel. They work with the deep state; that is, a political nexus that crosses party lines and tries to maintain the interests of the Federal Reserve, banks, major corporations and the welfare system. They have a similar nexus with colleges and universities.
Most US politicians are grass roots in the sense that they are not known quantities to the public at large when they get into politics. For example, in the Trump-Russia investigation, who the hell is Jerry Nadler or Devin Nunes? Nobody outside of their districts really knows or cares, which means the media can try to define their characters to the nation and the world at large. For serious presidential contenders, that is much harder to do, because the leading candidates are generally known to a wider audience. However, to a global audience, they are easily defined by the US media for you. You probably never heard of Donald Trump before he ran for president.
In the United States, Donald Trump is a known quantity. In the United States, historically a "racist" is someone who wants to create or maintain a political system that favors one race over another. The term "racist" has an historical basis, and mostly involves the Democratic party and their support for slavery and later segregation up until about 1960. It is politically not the same thing as someone who agrees with radical notions of equality, or who finds "microaggressions" everywhere they go. So the plasticity of the term in modern parlance to the young makes no sense to older voters--the people who actually vote in the US.
Historically, Donald Trump has been known to work with, hire, promote and pay well women and people of all races. What you do not seem to understand as a non-American is that when I say he has been known to do this, millions of Americans know this about Donald Trump. In fact, a big part of Donald Trump's entry into the golf market was to provide golf courses and country clubs that competed with exclusive clubs that historically did not admit blacks or Jews. You can dismiss this all you want, but you have to remember that I'm an American. Trump was a nationally-known figure back in the 1980s. He had a very popular board game among other things. Americans who followed Trump's career know this about him. The media does not get to redefine him for the American public who know him already, at least the older American public.
The US media can try to redefine him for people who weren't paying attention, or who weren't of age until recently. It's a fools errand to waste their time for a 51-year old like myself. Calling a guy who hangs out with Martin Luther King III, Don King, Kanye West, Amarosa Manigault; has a picture of himself with Rosa Parks, and so forth a "racist" is a waste of time to people who already know Donald Trump. It stands to make you look like a shill to those people. Trump also uses his rhetoric to get YOU to attack HIM, which has the effect of destroying YOUR credibility among HIS base. That's the 4d Chess of Donald Trump. You should at least be aware of that much.
In the US, illegal immigrant labor is used to drive down wages, to fill otherwise unfillable jobs (because welfare pays poor unemployed people not to work if they vote for the Democratic party), and to pad the voter rolls for left-leaning (American sense) politicians. It has had a devastating effect on wage rates among working class and blue collar workers who are US citizens and do not want to live on welfare. They had not seen raises in 30 years. Both the Democratic party AND the Republican party establishments went along with this. They also went along with free trade with China. This dates back to the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. Back then, Nancy Pelosi was hemming and hawing about the effect of free trade with China, including what its effect WOULD be on US labor unions (in the pocket of the Democratic party) and she also yammered on about human rights violations in China. The profits of labor arbitrageurs has been too great for the major corporations that own the media and the politicians they purchase to have them continue to represent the interests of working class and blue collar workers. Very wealthy individuals who control these corporations also generally have the ability to starve funding to politicians they do not like.
This left a huge political vacuum in the United States and a burgeoning Tea Party movement. Trump was able to fill that vacuum in a presidential race, because they were not able to define Trump as a "racist, sexist, homophobe" etc. or starve him of funding. Trump was able to define his opponents in laughably funny and insightful ways: "Low energy Jeb Bush, Little Marco Rubio, Lyin Ted Cruz, Crooked Hillary Clinton" and so forth. Millions of Americans had watched his Apprentice series on NBC. To many Americans, he was and is immensely entertaining.
Ok. You still haven't mentioned them, and I don't see what that has to do with Iran though. It just seems that you get a powerful feeling of righteousness calling people "racist".
I did not disagree with Clinton acting unilaterally. I do not believe the US has to have permission from anyone else to act or that we should fail to act if others fail to act. However, I was skeptical he would be able to pull that off with airpower alone. I distinctly remember feeling that I was proven wrong in that case, which doesn't happen a lot with me.
First, that should tell you that I support the US acting unilaterally regardless of who is president. As for unilateral actions, I think US presidents may take them. My views of Clinton's foreign policy at the time were as follows:
1. China and NAFTA: In those days, I didn't care. I heard a lot of arguments either way, but the Republicans were for it too, so I bought off on the "bi-partisan" notion at the time. Today, if someone says "bi-partisan," I am instantly skeptical and my initial knee-jerk reaction is to oppose anything portrayed as "bi-partisan". Bush negotiated NAFTA and Clinton implemented it. Notice how after both were out of office, they turned out to be buddy-buddy? Bush lost his presidency in part because of NAFTA, which I really didn't understand at the time. Ross Perot's biggest beef was with NAFTA and he bled off support first from Clinton and later from Bush. After the conventions, Clinton was coming in third at one point. Had Perot won, NAFTA and GATT/WTO never would have happened. I didn't support Perot, but he turned out to be right.
2. Somalia: I thought Clinton's pull out was pre-mature. However, I didn't know what the hell he would be able to do there anyway. It was Bush who went in there, and without the Powell Doctrine. So neither Bush nor Clinton had defined a clear military objective.
3. Rwanda: I thought Clinton's failure to act was a dark stain on his presidency, and an even worse stain on European powers for inventing the term "ethnic cleansing," because the term "genocide" would require them to act legally. That whole fiasco made me a realist about "genocide" and so forth. People will not act in the interest of others if it is not in their own self interest. So I criticize Clinton for continuing with the moral tone on US foreign policy, but credit him for clarifying for me how the world really works.
4. Attacks on Al-Qaeda: I supported Clinton's missile attacks on Al Qaeda in the aftermath of US Embassy bombings. I thought his response to the USS Cole incident was decidedly bizarre. He sent in the FBI and treated it as a criminal matter. When he later said that the biggest threat to the US was Al Qaeda, I laughed. I thought he was full of shit. To a significant extent, he was proven right, but he was also the one who put up a firewall between the FBI and CIA--fearing that they were right wing and would conspire against him. Clearly the tables have turned.
5. Iraq: I supported Clinton's retaliatory strike on Iraq after they tried to kill president Bush on his visit to Kuwait.
That's absolutely correct. Iran's constant provocations and failure to follow global air traffic norms ended up getting civilians killed in a tragic and unnecessary manner.
Nor should we have apologized for Operation Ajax. Mossadeq's behavior was clearly dictatorial in running a phony election banning the secret ballot. Even Hitler didn't do that. Mossadeq was clearly in league with the Tudeh party and the Shah was the internationally recognized sovereign of Iran.
noemon wrote:because Trump run on 2 major platforms, a racist platform and an anti-war platform. Once you take out the anti-war platform all that is left is the racist platform.
As I said to Torus34, it's more or less a waste of time debating you on this point. I am an American and you are not. If it is your intent to persuade American voters, it will fail for reasons that may not be obvious to you. I will give you one explanation (not an argument I care to debate), which you can file away for future reference when you feel a bit more reflective or more sincerely interested in why a majority of people in the US will not accept your opinion.
In US politics, the media is privately owned. We do have National Public Radio (NPR) and a Public Broadcast System (PBS) that are publicly owned and funded. However, they do not have that much reach. They are nothing like BBC, for example. We also have Cable Special Access Networks or C-SPAN. However, most people get their information from privately owned (including publicly traded) for-profit media outlets. There are six major media outlets that dominate all the smaller ones. In American political parlance, these outlets are chock-full of center-left welfare state advocates. The ratio is more than 9:1 left leaning, again in American parlance. However, in being for a welfare state, that does not mean that they are exclusively Democrats, as some Republicans are for corporate welfare, farm welfare, etc. It's basically a system that is tied to the federal reserve, major banks, major corporations and major media outlets. They are for-profit. They aim to make money. In politics, they tend to push the Democratic party line 9:1. They collude with the Democratic party. They take money from the Democratic party and its personnel. They give money to the Democratic party and its personnel. They work with the deep state; that is, a political nexus that crosses party lines and tries to maintain the interests of the Federal Reserve, banks, major corporations and the welfare system. They have a similar nexus with colleges and universities.
Most US politicians are grass roots in the sense that they are not known quantities to the public at large when they get into politics. For example, in the Trump-Russia investigation, who the hell is Jerry Nadler or Devin Nunes? Nobody outside of their districts really knows or cares, which means the media can try to define their characters to the nation and the world at large. For serious presidential contenders, that is much harder to do, because the leading candidates are generally known to a wider audience. However, to a global audience, they are easily defined by the US media for you. You probably never heard of Donald Trump before he ran for president.
In the United States, Donald Trump is a known quantity. In the United States, historically a "racist" is someone who wants to create or maintain a political system that favors one race over another. The term "racist" has an historical basis, and mostly involves the Democratic party and their support for slavery and later segregation up until about 1960. It is politically not the same thing as someone who agrees with radical notions of equality, or who finds "microaggressions" everywhere they go. So the plasticity of the term in modern parlance to the young makes no sense to older voters--the people who actually vote in the US.
Historically, Donald Trump has been known to work with, hire, promote and pay well women and people of all races. What you do not seem to understand as a non-American is that when I say he has been known to do this, millions of Americans know this about Donald Trump. In fact, a big part of Donald Trump's entry into the golf market was to provide golf courses and country clubs that competed with exclusive clubs that historically did not admit blacks or Jews. You can dismiss this all you want, but you have to remember that I'm an American. Trump was a nationally-known figure back in the 1980s. He had a very popular board game among other things. Americans who followed Trump's career know this about him. The media does not get to redefine him for the American public who know him already, at least the older American public.
The US media can try to redefine him for people who weren't paying attention, or who weren't of age until recently. It's a fools errand to waste their time for a 51-year old like myself. Calling a guy who hangs out with Martin Luther King III, Don King, Kanye West, Amarosa Manigault; has a picture of himself with Rosa Parks, and so forth a "racist" is a waste of time to people who already know Donald Trump. It stands to make you look like a shill to those people. Trump also uses his rhetoric to get YOU to attack HIM, which has the effect of destroying YOUR credibility among HIS base. That's the 4d Chess of Donald Trump. You should at least be aware of that much.
In the US, illegal immigrant labor is used to drive down wages, to fill otherwise unfillable jobs (because welfare pays poor unemployed people not to work if they vote for the Democratic party), and to pad the voter rolls for left-leaning (American sense) politicians. It has had a devastating effect on wage rates among working class and blue collar workers who are US citizens and do not want to live on welfare. They had not seen raises in 30 years. Both the Democratic party AND the Republican party establishments went along with this. They also went along with free trade with China. This dates back to the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. Back then, Nancy Pelosi was hemming and hawing about the effect of free trade with China, including what its effect WOULD be on US labor unions (in the pocket of the Democratic party) and she also yammered on about human rights violations in China. The profits of labor arbitrageurs has been too great for the major corporations that own the media and the politicians they purchase to have them continue to represent the interests of working class and blue collar workers. Very wealthy individuals who control these corporations also generally have the ability to starve funding to politicians they do not like.
This left a huge political vacuum in the United States and a burgeoning Tea Party movement. Trump was able to fill that vacuum in a presidential race, because they were not able to define Trump as a "racist, sexist, homophobe" etc. or starve him of funding. Trump was able to define his opponents in laughably funny and insightful ways: "Low energy Jeb Bush, Little Marco Rubio, Lyin Ted Cruz, Crooked Hillary Clinton" and so forth. Millions of Americans had watched his Apprentice series on NBC. To many Americans, he was and is immensely entertaining.
noemon wrote:There are also Trump supporters in here who claim not to want war with Iran but are still racist because they argue for racism.
Ok. You still haven't mentioned them, and I don't see what that has to do with Iran though. It just seems that you get a powerful feeling of righteousness calling people "racist".
noemon wrote:So you disagreed with Clinton acting "unilaterally" against Serbia and were fine with him being impeached meaning I take it you were against his "unilateral" moves -even though they were not even unilateral but enjoyed the support of several European countries like Germany and the UK- but you support Trump's totally unilateral moves against Iran and Palestine that have discredited the US and for absolutely nothing in return.
I did not disagree with Clinton acting unilaterally. I do not believe the US has to have permission from anyone else to act or that we should fail to act if others fail to act. However, I was skeptical he would be able to pull that off with airpower alone. I distinctly remember feeling that I was proven wrong in that case, which doesn't happen a lot with me.
noemon wrote:And the only way you would support a democrat [former] President would not be for their own foreign policy actions but only if foreign states tried to arrest a US [former] President.
First, that should tell you that I support the US acting unilaterally regardless of who is president. As for unilateral actions, I think US presidents may take them. My views of Clinton's foreign policy at the time were as follows:
1. China and NAFTA: In those days, I didn't care. I heard a lot of arguments either way, but the Republicans were for it too, so I bought off on the "bi-partisan" notion at the time. Today, if someone says "bi-partisan," I am instantly skeptical and my initial knee-jerk reaction is to oppose anything portrayed as "bi-partisan". Bush negotiated NAFTA and Clinton implemented it. Notice how after both were out of office, they turned out to be buddy-buddy? Bush lost his presidency in part because of NAFTA, which I really didn't understand at the time. Ross Perot's biggest beef was with NAFTA and he bled off support first from Clinton and later from Bush. After the conventions, Clinton was coming in third at one point. Had Perot won, NAFTA and GATT/WTO never would have happened. I didn't support Perot, but he turned out to be right.
2. Somalia: I thought Clinton's pull out was pre-mature. However, I didn't know what the hell he would be able to do there anyway. It was Bush who went in there, and without the Powell Doctrine. So neither Bush nor Clinton had defined a clear military objective.
3. Rwanda: I thought Clinton's failure to act was a dark stain on his presidency, and an even worse stain on European powers for inventing the term "ethnic cleansing," because the term "genocide" would require them to act legally. That whole fiasco made me a realist about "genocide" and so forth. People will not act in the interest of others if it is not in their own self interest. So I criticize Clinton for continuing with the moral tone on US foreign policy, but credit him for clarifying for me how the world really works.
4. Attacks on Al-Qaeda: I supported Clinton's missile attacks on Al Qaeda in the aftermath of US Embassy bombings. I thought his response to the USS Cole incident was decidedly bizarre. He sent in the FBI and treated it as a criminal matter. When he later said that the biggest threat to the US was Al Qaeda, I laughed. I thought he was full of shit. To a significant extent, he was proven right, but he was also the one who put up a firewall between the FBI and CIA--fearing that they were right wing and would conspire against him. Clearly the tables have turned.
5. Iraq: I supported Clinton's retaliatory strike on Iraq after they tried to kill president Bush on his visit to Kuwait.
BigSteve wrote:The pilot of flight 655 played a role in that, as he was not monitoring civilian air traffic and, if he was, he didn't respond to the numerous attempts made by the Vincennes to contact the airliner.
That's absolutely correct. Iran's constant provocations and failure to follow global air traffic norms ended up getting civilians killed in a tragic and unnecessary manner.
BigSteve wrote:Nor should we have apologized.
Nor should we have apologized for Operation Ajax. Mossadeq's behavior was clearly dictatorial in running a phony election banning the secret ballot. Even Hitler didn't do that. Mossadeq was clearly in league with the Tudeh party and the Shah was the internationally recognized sovereign of Iran.
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