I agree with Trump

[Cliff Varnell]

On 7/23/2018 at 9:08 AM, Paul Brancato said:

Jeff - let me make a point a little clearer:

when a man like Trump goes after the FBI and Justice Department the way he has, it convinces me that his enemies are my friends. I don’t think the evidence against Trump is politicized. 

Ah yes.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

If one regards the National Security/Surveillance State as monolithic and hegemonic then the enemies of that Enemy are your friends -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But if one regards the Bible-thumping Trump Cult as THE Enemy of Mankind, elements of the Surveillance State investigating the Trump Crime Family are your friends.

I view the Surveillance State as faction ridden and given to intense internecine warfare. 

Neither monolithic nor hegemonic.

The Boston Marathon Bombing left both the FBI and the CIA with black eyes.  The Edward Snowden Affair took both the NSA and DEA down a peg.  Both strike me as the product of competing agencies.

Given the robust presence of Bible-thumpers within the Surveillance/Security State it is imperative that the Trump Cult be resisted and eventually removed.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Cliff Varnell

[Jeff Carter]

On 7/26/2018 at 7:26 AM, Cliff Varnell said:

Ah yes.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

If one regards the National Security/Surveillance State as monolithic and hegemonic then the enemies of that Enemy are your friends -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

But if one regards the Bible-thumping Trump Cult as THE Enemy of Mankind, elements of the Surveillance State investigating the Trump Crime Family are your friends.

I view the Surveillance State as faction ridden and given to intense internecine warfare. 

Neither monolithic nor hegemonic.

The Boston Marathon Bombing left both the FBI and the CIA with black eyes.  The Edward Snowden Affair took both the NSA and DEA down a peg.  Both strike me as the product of competing agencies.

Given the robust presence of Bible-thumpers within the Surveillance/Security State it is imperative that the Trump Cult be resisted and eventually removed.

I don’t regard the National Security/Surveillance State as monolithic and hegemonic. Rather, leading figures within the National Security/Surveillance State regard it as such, as is confirmed by public statements they have made. During the second Obama term the codeword for a hegemonic worldview was “exceptional”, as in “I believe America as the exceptional country.”

When I think of “enemies” of the National Security/Surveillance State, neither Trump or Putin really come to mind. The only true enemies seem to be persons and organizations dedicated to Constitutional protections and open government.

The Surveillance State has a tight hierarchical structure which precludes factionalism or internal battles. However, America’s ruling class/elite/1% are precisely “faction ridden and given to intense internecine warfare.” On display these days in full intensity.

The powers of the FBI, CIA, NSA, and DEA have only increased since Boston and Snowden.

Very good article today by the excellent reporting team of Paul Fitzgerald-Elizabeth Gould, describing the deliberate manipulation of reality involving events in Afghanistan in the late 1970s, and how clusters of politicized insiders can in fact control national policy utilizing the controlled dissemination of information, with echoes of the internecine warfare of today.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/27/the-grand-illusion-of-imperial-power/

[Mark Wengler]

1st Trump is a racist. 2nd Trump is the crookedest and president this country has ever had. 3rd there was and is conclusion between Trump and Russia aka Putin. 4th The greatest threat to the U.S and the world. is Valdimir Putin. As soon he is gone from the world stage. The U.S and the world will be a safer place.

[Evan Burton]

Have people's opinions been changed but Trump's actions over the last few months?

[David G. Healy]

"NATO's essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means. Collective defence is at the heart of the Alliance and creates a spirit of solidarity and cohesion among its members."

Wanna pay for it, or not? These "objective-subjective" arguments/excuses are BS.

Ya don't want to, perhaps *isolation* is the game of your hour.

[Matt Allison]

Not quite sure where to post this, but the Capitol police officer that committed suicide yesterday was friends with Roger Stone, as his father, former Senate aide Howard Liebengood, and Stone were very close.

[Pamela Brown]

Ironic Dylan lyrics...

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/times-they-are-changin/

In further irony...

https://www.beachamjournal.com/journal/2021/01/the-times-they-are-a-changin-bob-dylans-third-studio-album-was-released-on-this-day-in-1964-57-years.html

and, if that's not enough...

https://bobdylanstore.com/products/theres-a-battle-hoodie?variant=37462026649777

Edited January 13 by Pamela Brown

[Pamela Brown]

On 1/9/2021 at 11:07 PM, Evan Burton said:

Have people's opinions been changed but Trump's actions over the last few months?

It seems to me that Pres. Trump fell prey to his own hubris and ended up in a trap. This storming of the Capitol was not spontaneous; however, Trump's words provided the match.  

So, yes. 

[Dan Stevenson]

The change in my opinion of Trump is undetectable next to the change in my opinion of the Capital police, the Replican house caucus and the American people.  Sure I can't blame all Americans for this, but, when you factor in the nature of the events and the reasons for them, the degree is support inside and outside congress is extremely disturbing.  

I may not ever recover from it.  The shear numbers of people with those beliefs, while small as a percentage, is in the millions.  It is enough to cause long term and significant problems for our Republic.  I'm sure it affects every profession and region.  It makes it hard for me to trust anybody when so many are hateful and violent and don't respect our government institutions.

I think the economic pressures brought on by global climate change, pandemics, overpopulation and pollution are corrupting people into accepting extreme positions and questionable beliefs.  

If we don't create a massive and strict regulatory system to limit social media, things will spin out of control pretty quickly.  Good luck doing that with all of the 1st amendment issues that involves.

Anyway, I was never a Trump supporter.  Very early on, I had hopes that he might be a populist president, but long before the Mueller investigation, I realized that he is a sociopathic narcissist with some extremely dangerous authoritarian personality traits that somehow hypnotize otherwise reasonable people into supporting him.  He is the most dangerous world figure since Hitler.  And the only reason he isn't more dangerous is that he constantly advertises what he is doing.  Hitler was a little more stealthy than that.  We haven't seen the last of him and, by the time it's all over, who knows how much worse he will become.  He is well loved.  He is probably better loved by the right than MLK was ever loved by black America.

Trump is replicating himself like an out of control virus in communities across America.  The next guy will be a lot scarier, more careful and better armed.  The constitution, government institutions and Democracy are in the crosshairs.