REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A thread for Democrats Only

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Sunday, June 3, 2018 9:48 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Here's a quarter. Go call somebody who cares.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

And that is why you lean Republican, 6ixStringJack. You don't care.



No. It's because Democrats focus on all the wrong things and say the same dumb rhetorical arguments over and over again while offering nothing to the people and getting nothing done.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, June 3, 2018 12:33 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Here's a quarter. Go call somebody who cares.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

And that is why you lean Republican, 6ixStringJack. You don't care.


No. It's because Democrats focus on all the wrong things and say the same dumb rhetorical arguments over and over again while offering nothing to the people and getting nothing done.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

But! Russia!
But! Stormy!
But! Tax Files!

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Monday, June 4, 2018 8:43 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
But! Russia!
But! Stormy!
But! Tax Files!

But! You are full of shit, JewelStaiteFan, as is failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum#2016_presidential_run who couldn't compete with Trump as the biggest racist, but he does the best he can:

Rick Santorum on Sunday blamed former President Barack Obama for increasing racial tensions in the nation.

The former Republican senator from Pennsylvania and two-time presidential candidate made the comments during a panel discussion on CNN which included former Obama aide Karine Jean-Pierre.

Jean-Pierre said there was an “uproar” after Obama’s 2008 election as the nation’s first black president.

“And what Donald Trump did is he tapped into it because let’s not forget he started his political career talking about birtherism, being the spokesperson of birtherism,” she said, referring to the debunked conspiracy theory that claimed Obama wasn’t born in the United States.

“He saw something as well and tapped into that, tapped into that racism,” she said.

Santorum disagreed.

“What’s being ignored here is the role that Barack Obama played in all this,” he said. “I mean you just can’t go from well, we elected our first black president to all of a sudden we get Donald Trump. There was something in between those two things.”

Jean-Pierre interrupted to clarify that Obama’s election “tapped into something in this country.”

Santorum replied: “The thing it tapped into was that many, many, many people saw Barack Obama being just that, doing more to exacerbate racism in this country.”

“How?” asked Jean-Pierre. “What did he do?”

“Every time there was a controversy where someone in color was involved, he took the side of, many times, against the police ? he did it over and over and over again,” he said.

See the full discussion above. The comments about Obama begin at the 8-minute mark.

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rick-santorum-barack-obama-racism_us_5b14
97e2e4b0d5e89e20c8e1


His political career began in advocacy of birtherism, that modern recasting of the old American precept that black people are not fit to be citizens of the country they built. But long before birtherism, Trump had made his worldview clear. He fought to keep blacks out of his buildings, according to the U.S. government; called for the death penalty for the eventually exonerated Central Park Five; and railed against “lazy” black employees. “Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” Trump was once quoted as saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.” After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president
-ta-nehisi-coates/537909
/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 4, 2018 9:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Hey look. Another 10 paragraph unrelated segway with a quote and an insult to start it off.

If we can't say anything else good about you Second, at least you're consistent and predictable.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, June 4, 2018 10:21 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Hey look. Another 10 paragraph unrelated segway with a quote and an insult to start it off.

If we can't say anything else good about you Second, at least you're consistent and predictable.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, you're consistent, having written: "No. It's because Democrats focus on all the wrong things and say the same dumb rhetorical arguments over and over again while offering nothing to the people and getting nothing done."

The consistent part, 6ix, is that you did not write "It's because Democrats and Republicans focus on all the wrong things . . ."

It is also consistent that 6ix didn't note the GOP passed a few bills, over the objections of 99% of the Democrats in Congress, and those GOP sponsored bills "offered nothing to the people". It is as if 6ix has no idea how the GOP screwed him. There is your insult for the day, 6ix. Now for the analysis: Without ever having met him in real life (but I have met men who are similar) I feel confident predicting that 6ix has in the past and will continue indefinitely into the future using his invincible ignorance on material questions about getting ahead in America to sabotage his own life. And he will continue to blame both Democrats and Republicans for his own failures, but mostly blame the Democrats. That is no way to go through life, 6ix, unless you want to stay on the bottom of the hierarchy, wandering the roads alone and unmarried in a crappy old vehicle until you die, with rotten teeth, decades younger than the average white male in Texas who has enough money to buy a good vehicle and to go to the dentist and the doctor once a year.


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 4, 2018 11:06 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Hey look. Another 10 paragraph unrelated segway with a quote and an insult to start it off.

If we can't say anything else good about you Second, at least you're consistent and predictable.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, you're consistent, having written: "No. It's because Democrats focus on all the wrong things and say the same dumb rhetorical arguments over and over again while offering nothing to the people and getting nothing done."

The consistent part, 6ix, is that you did not write "It's because Democrats and Republicans focus on all the wrong things . . ."

It is also consistent that 6ix didn't note the GOP passed a few bills, over the objections of 99% of the Democrats in Congress, and those GOP sponsored bills "offered nothing to the people". It is as if 6ix has no idea how the GOP screwed him. There is your insult for the day, 6ix. Now for the analysis: Without ever having met him in real life (but I have met men who are similar) I feel confident predicting that 6ix has in the past and will continue indefinitely into the future using his invincible ignorance on material questions about getting ahead in America to sabotage his own life. And he will continue to blame both Democrats and Republicans for his own failures, but mostly blame the Democrats. That is no way to go through life, 6ix, unless you want to stay on the bottom of the hierarchy, wandering the roads alone and unmarried in a crappy old vehicle until you die, with rotten teeth, decades younger than the average white male in Texas who has enough money to buy a good vehicle and to go to the dentist and the doctor once a year.


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



We're all on the bottom of the hierarchy, Second. Nobody believes that you have any money either. The middle class is a dying dream, and it won't be too long until everybody here is much closer to the bottom with me.

If I woke up tomorrow and changed my mind on everything Politics and decided that the Democrats are completely right, as you suggest everybody should, just how is that going to change anything in my life?

As I've said before, I'm the only dynamic character on these boards. My life has improved immesurably in the last 18 months since I stopped drinking, and there isn't a politician or party that is responsible for any of these improvements. That's all me.

Getting a job that will help me crawl the rest of the way out of the hole I dug for myself is on my list of current goals, but since I'm making improvements everywhere else in my life I'm not looking at every day without a great job as a loss.

It is true. I don't like Democrats or Republicans. I just happen to like the former even less than the latter. Republicans at least aren't actively trying to make me feel bad for being born a white male, or telling me that I'm a bad person based off of my race. The Democrats today are as racist as they come.

Fix your party.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, June 4, 2018 3:04 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We're all on the bottom of the hierarchy, Second. Nobody believes that you have any money either. The middle class is a dying dream, and it won't be too long until everybody here is much closer to the bottom with me.

If I woke up tomorrow and changed my mind on everything Politics and decided that the Democrats are completely right, as you suggest everybody should, just how is that going to change anything in my life?

If you are gonna disbelieve what I said about myself, I'm gonna start believing your teeth are perfect, you are not a recovered alcoholic, you are happily married with four beautiful children and are working a 40 hour week as a well-paid manager at a high tech company you love with a generous pension and health insurance.

Nothing changes for the better in lower 50% of the population because the GOP is the majority. When it is not, in 2 years it will swing back into a majority and undo everything the Democrats did. You are living in a nation designed by the GOP, not by Democrats.

Trump enjoys more support from his party at Day 500 than any other president since World War II, excluding 9/11 Bush.
https://qz.com/1295674

There are some Mormon Republicans and some of my Nebraska Republican relatives that disapprove of Trump, but the GOP is mostly unified. On the other hand, the things 6ixStringJack hates about the Democratic Party are the same things half of Democratic voters hate too. The Democrats aren’t unified about anything and are always fighting with themselves about every little detail. The relevant quote from 1935 is still true: "I am not a member of any organized political party; I am a Democrat."
www.brainyquote.com/authors/will_rogers

The Democrats are pointlessly beating up themselves and helping the GOP beat them. An example: www.vox.com/2018/6/4/17424748/clinton-lewinsky-resign-gillibrand
"Some see it as foolish for Democrats to try to hold themselves to a high standard of conduct when Republicans hold Trump to no standard at all."

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 4, 2018 3:16 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
But! Russia!
But! Stormy!
But! Tax Files!

But! You are full of shit, JewelStaiteFan, as is failed presidential candidate Rick Santorum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum#2016_presidential_run who couldn't compete with Trump as the biggest racist, but he does the best he can:

Rick Santorum on Sunday blamed former President Barack Obama for increasing racial tensions in the nation.

Aha! Now second provides clear definition: anybody who is capable of observing Obvious Truth and stating Obvious Fact is A RACIST!

Life is so confusing without Libtards Redefining words for us.

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Monday, June 4, 2018 5:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Maybe if the Democratic Party wasn't so toxic it would have more support.

As far as I lean towards Republicans today, I leaned towards Democrats when GWB was in office and I first joined this site.

Socially, I agree much more with Democrats on almost all core issues. My only real hangups there, as I've stated before, is that I don't agree with how they view guns and gun control, I don't agree with taxpayer funded abortions, and I don't agree with either party that men should have no say when it comes to the birth of a child.

I even agree with some fiscal views of Democrats. As I've said before in here I have no problems with food stamps, and I argue against anyone who calls people on them worthless. If we fix the economy and create more jobs that offer more than the government dole, most people would go back to work.

In the last decade plus though, the Democrats have become obsessed with identity politics. Maybe you really are rich and you don't see that or feel it because it doesn't effect you at all. As a white male, the Democratic Party in 2018 has made it very clear that I am the enemy, simply for the anatomy and the color of the skin I was born with.

I can't afford to actively vote against myself.

It must be nice to have so much that you don't feel that burden.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018 12:58 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Nothing changes for the better in lower 50% of the population because the GOP ...Democrats ... politicians elite is the majority in power.
FIFY

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018 1:41 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"Maybe if the Democratic Party wasn't so toxic it would have more support."

Jack, we disagree on a lot of thing... OK, almost everything ... but I'm 100% with you on this.

And speaking of Hillary, as the perfect exemplar of everything wrong with the party, in this situation the cream did not rise to the top. Nope. The scum floated up.




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018 2:09 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Maybe if the Democratic Party wasn't so toxic it would have more support."

Jack, we disagree on a lot of thing... OK, almost everything ... but I'm 100% with you on this.

And speaking of Hillary, as the perfect exemplar of everything wrong with the party, in this situation the cream did not rise to the top. Nope. The scum floated up.

SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

I feel like the scum coagulated at the top. You know poop can float, right?

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018 9:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

I feel like the scum coagulated at the top. You know poop can float, right?

America’s allies should respond to steel tariffs with targeted sanctions on the Trump Organization.

Our trade partners are planning to respond to President Donald Trump’s imposition of new taxes on steel and aluminum imported from those countries by hitting back with tariffs of their own, raising prices for the American people. Our trade partners should forget about retaliating against America. Instead, retaliate against something Trump cares about: his money.

When China wanted to get Trump to let the Chinese tech conglomerate ZTE off the hook for repeatedly violating sanctions against North Korea, it didn’t try to make concessions to the American people. It had a Chinese state-owned enterprise approve a huge loan to an Indonesian real estate project that will feature Trump-branded hotels, condos, and a golf course.

America’s democratic allies probably can’t (and certainly shouldn’t) bribe Trump and his family in this way, but they both can and should do the opposite: work together on a package of targeted sanctions narrowly designed to inflict pain specifically on the Trump Organization.

The countries Trump is taxing are not only friendly — they are literally bound to the United States by mutual defense treaties.

The idea that they represent a potential threat to America is either laughable or alarming, suggesting that Trump harbors aspirations of completely severing America’s traditional diplomatic relationships.

In light of the unusual combination of geopolitical absurdity and delicacy that the situation poses, at a press conference last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reached into the bag of rhetorical clichés we normally see American officials deploy against authoritarian regimes abroad:
Quote:

I want to be clear on one point: Americans remain our partners, our allies, and our friends. The American people [are] not the target of today’s announcement. We hope that eventually common sense will triumph. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the American government do not seem to be headed in that direction. This is not the American people. We have to believe that, at some point, common sense will prevail. But we see no sign of that in this action today by the US administration.
While it’s a good speech, the reality is that Trudeau’s policy countermeasures are aimed at the American people, and so is what we know of Europe’s response. The EU’s idea is that if they punish Paul Ryan’s constituents by levying new taxes on Wisconsin’s Harley-Davidson motorcycles, it will induce Ryan to bring pressure to bear on Trump.

A better path would be to take Trudeau’s analysis seriously — America’s allies should come together and retaliate against Trump rather than retaliating against the American people.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/5/17422492/sanction-trump-organ
ization


Canada could add a tax to Trump properties equal to any tariff unilaterally imposed by Washington. The European Union could revoke any travel visas for senior staff in the Trump organization. And the United Kingdom could temporarily close his golf course.

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Tuesday, June 5, 2018 3:36 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

I feel like the scum coagulated at the top. You know poop can float, right?

After doing the arithmetic, it just so happens that Trump is a bigger turd than previously estimated: Trump’s steel tariffs will cost 400,000 Americans jobs, a new estimate says.

After Donald Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum from the US’s closest allies last week, economists warned that they could result in thousands of US job losses. The latest numbers from The Trade Partnership, a DC-based economics research firm, suggests that the impact will be even worse than originally estimated.

Some 400,000 jobs will be lost, with 16 losses for every job created by the tariffs, the group said today. That’s more than three times the number of job losses it expected earlier.

As Quartz has explained, it’s true that steel producers in the US may see a slight rise in jobs due to tariffs. However, the (much larger) industries that depend on imported steel will suffer, like automakers, construction groups and even financial services. Just over 400,000 people in the US work in metal-producing jobs, economist Jed Kolko wrote in March, but 4.6 million work in jobs that depend on metal.

Employers in industries that use metal will have to pay more for raw materials, charge more for products, and could trim or move jobs. “Steel consuming industries face annual employment declines of 97,614 in each of the first one to three years the tariffs, quotas and retaliation are in place,” the Trade Partnership says.

More on which American Industries lose jobs, and how many, at https://qz.com/1297697

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 8, 2018 7:29 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump Sure Seems to Like Russia a Lot, Doesn’t He?

Over the course of 16+ months, President Trump has acted consistently and with some success to destabilize and break up the western alliance — both its formal manifestation in NATO but also its less formal dimensions in trade and other partnerships. He has also worked consistently on really every front to advance the interests of Russia.

Less obviously to many Americans, he’s been doing something similar in East Asia. The U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea…is not simply to protect against North Korea. It is to build a series of security relationships with countries on that periphery to act as a counterweight to the regional (perhaps world) great power, China.

….The last twenty four hours of attacks on our closest allies capped by President Trump’s seemingly out of the blue demand to bring Russia back into the G-7 (making it again the G-8 which it was for most of the post-Cold War era until Russia was expelled over the annexation of Crimea) simply brings the matter into a newly sharp relief. If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.

Take a moment to let that sink in. I need to take a moment to let it sink in. It’s shocking to me. It’s shocking to me what’s happening….We have a President who clearly got a great deal of assistance from Russia in getting elected….He’s doing all the stuff he’d have been asked to do if such a corrupt bargain had been made. At a certain point — and I’d say we’re clearly at or past that point — it really doesn’t matter whether we can prove such a bargain was made. I’m not even sure it matters whether it was explicit or even happened. The bank robber helped the teller get the job and now the teller just won’t seem to lock the safe or even turn on the alarm. We can debate forever whether the teller is just absent-minded or has some odd philosophical aversion toward locks. The debate may be unresolvable. It truly doesn’t matter.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/donald-trump-sure-seems-to-like
-russia-a-lot-doesnt-he
/


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 8, 2018 8:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Trump Sure Seems to Like Russia a Lot, Doesn’t He?

Over the course of 16+ months, President Trump has acted consistently and with some success to destabilize and break up the western alliance — both its formal manifestation in NATO but also its less formal dimensions in trade and other partnerships. He has also worked consistently on really every front to advance the interests of Russia.

Less obviously to many Americans, he’s been doing something similar in East Asia. The U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea…is not simply to protect against North Korea. It is to build a series of security relationships with countries on that periphery to act as a counterweight to the regional (perhaps world) great power, China.

….The last twenty four hours of attacks on our closest allies capped by President Trump’s seemingly out of the blue demand to bring Russia back into the G-7 (making it again the G-8 which it was for most of the post-Cold War era until Russia was expelled over the annexation of Crimea) simply brings the matter into a newly sharp relief. If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.

Take a moment to let that sink in. I need to take a moment to let it sink in. It’s shocking to me. It’s shocking to me what’s happening….We have a President who clearly got a great deal of assistance from Russia in getting elected….He’s doing all the stuff he’d have been asked to do if such a corrupt bargain had been made. At a certain point — and I’d say we’re clearly at or past that point — it really doesn’t matter whether we can prove such a bargain was made. I’m not even sure it matters whether it was explicit or even happened. The bank robber helped the teller get the job and now the teller just won’t seem to lock the safe or even turn on the alarm. We can debate forever whether the teller is just absent-minded or has some odd philosophical aversion toward locks. The debate may be unresolvable. It truly doesn’t matter.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/donald-trump-sure-seems-to-like
-russia-a-lot-doesnt-he
/


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



LOL...

There's still been zero evidence that Russia helped in the election at all.


Fuckin' Leftists. Hillary lost. Get over it already.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, June 8, 2018 9:24 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

LOL...

There's still been zero evidence that Russia helped in the election at all.


Fuckin' Leftists. Hillary lost. Get over it already.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I’m not an unreconstructed Cold Warrior who hates Russia. Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin is unquestionably a bad guy: he rigs elections, he tosses critics into prison, he’s built his populist cred on horrifically homophobic policy, he shuts down any media he doesn’t control, he threatens his neighbors, and he rules as an autocrat. It’s certainly no wonder that Trump seems to admire him. It’s pretty plain that Trump would like to rule that way too if he could figure out a way to do it.

But it’s worth noting that this isn’t just about Russia. If Trump came to office and started doing everything in his power to help France and hurt the rest of Europe, that would hardly be any better, even if France is currently a more admirable country than Russia. An American president isn’t obligated to literally ignore the interests of the rest of the world, but an American president is supposed to generally put America’s interests first. Trump talks about that constantly, but he sure doesn’t seem to do it in practice.

But if there’s anything even worse about this, it’s the fact that the Republican Party and 6ixStringJack just doesn’t seem to care. A few of them speak out occasionally, usually if they’ve decided not to run for reelection, but that’s about it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, June 8, 2018 10:10 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin is unquestionably a bad guy: he rigs elections, he tosses critics into prison, he’s built his populist cred on horrifically homophobic policy, he shuts down any media he doesn’t control, he threatens his neighbors, and he rules as an autocrat.
You seem to be speaking from complete and utter ignorance of Russia, like most people.

When Putin came to office, Russia had taken the worst drubbing of its recent history. It had just been treated to "shock treatment" from the western world that saw it economy de-industrialize and collapse by 30%, life expectancy drop by 6-7 years, mob bosses swoop in and claim vast swathes of Russian assets under the guise of "privatization", it's territorial claims shrink by 14% and its military sink into rusty oblivion. It was the kind of collapse that many are predicting for the United States. Putin reversed all that. The GDP rose by 200% (after falling under Yeltsin) and unemployment dropped by half. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/12/putin-generation-r
ussia-soviet-union
/ Putin's popularity is a bread-and-butter issue, as well as a national-pride issue. Only lately, under economic sanctions and political pressure from the West, has Putin used the Orthodox Church and militarism to glue the society together. But a man (and his staff) who dragged Russia out of the depths by the scruff of its neck is admired by many.

Also, There is far more diversity in Russian media than you imagine.

Quote:

It’s certainly no wonder that Trump seems to admire him. It’s pretty plain that Trump would like to rule that way too if he could figure out a way to do it.
The USA is on a financial slippery slope. We might NEED a leader who could "rule that way" ... and be damn grateful for getting one ... if our finances collapse like some are predicting (and I happen to think they are right).

Quote:

But it’s worth noting that this isn’t just about Russia. If Trump came to office and started doing everything in his power to help France and hurt the rest of Europe
Hello??? What has Trump done to "help Russia"? BE SPECIFIC.

Quote:

An American president isn’t obligated to literally ignore the interests of the rest of the world,
YES HE IS, if those interests are counter to ours. I have often asked What are America's interests? It is a question that you have DEEPLY ignored. I'm glad to see that you're FINALLY getting around to the topic, but I'm sure your interest will last until the next anti-Trump screed, and then you'll be off and riding that hobby-horse. A piece of friendly advice: Until you define "our" interests, you should probably keep your mouth shut before proclaiming that Trump is working against them because otherwise you'll sound like an idiot.



-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, June 9, 2018 6:36 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin is unquestionably a bad guy: he rigs elections, he tosses critics into prison, he’s built his populist cred on horrifically homophobic policy, he shuts down any media he doesn’t control, he threatens his neighbors, and he rules as an autocrat.
You seem to be speaking from complete and utter ignorance of Russia, like most people.

When Putin came to office, Russia had taken the worst drubbing of its recent history. It had just been treated to "shock treatment" from the western world that saw it economy de-industrialize and collapse by 30%, life expectancy drop by 6-7 years, mob bosses swoop in and claim vast swathes of Russian assets under the guise of "privatization", it's territorial claims shrink by 14% and its military sink into rusty oblivion. It was the kind of collapse that many are predicting for the United States. Putin reversed all that. The GDP rose by 200% (after falling under Yeltsin) and unemployment dropped by half. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/12/putin-generation-r
ussia-soviet-union
/ Putin's popularity is a bread-and-butter issue, as well as a national-pride issue. Only lately, under economic sanctions and political pressure from the West, has Putin used the Orthodox Church and militarism to glue the society together. But a man (and his staff) who dragged Russia out of the depths by the scruff of its neck is admired by many.

Also, There is far more diversity in Russian media than you imagine.

Quote:

It’s certainly no wonder that Trump seems to admire him. It’s pretty plain that Trump would like to rule that way too if he could figure out a way to do it.
The USA is on a financial slippery slope. We might NEED a leader who could "rule that way" ... and be damn grateful for getting one ... if our finances collapse like some are predicting (and I happen to think they are right).

Quote:

But it’s worth noting that this isn’t just about Russia. If Trump came to office and started doing everything in his power to help France and hurt the rest of Europe
Hello??? What has Trump done to "help Russia"? BE SPECIFIC.

Quote:

An American president isn’t obligated to literally ignore the interests of the rest of the world,
YES HE IS, if those interests are counter to ours. I have often asked What are America's interests? It is a question that you have DEEPLY ignored. I'm glad to see that you're FINALLY getting around to the topic, but I'm sure your interest will last until the next anti-Trump screed, and then you'll be off and riding that hobby-horse. A piece of friendly advice: Until you define "our" interests, you should probably keep your mouth shut before proclaiming that Trump is working against them because otherwise you'll sound like an idiot.



-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin#Illness

Yeltsin could never wrap his brain around the proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted. Yeltsin sold stock shares at ridiculously low prices in Russia's most valuable state enterprises in exchange for bank loans to cover government operating expenses. That is exactly what a fool I know did with her jewelry: She toke her rings and bracelets to a pawnshop: $80,000 in jewelry became $5,000 in cash, which she then wasted.

Putin, not brain damaged like Yeltsin, actually knows what he is doing, which makes all the difference in Russia’s improved fortune. Wouldn’t it be great to have an American President with a brain functioning half as well as Putin’s? With Yeltsin it was a bad heart and vodka screwing up his mind. With Trump it must be the McDonald's food. So much fat around his waist, his neck, his brain.

There are graphs available to show increasing inequality in Russia during the Yeltsin years. You can see that Putin only partially undid what Yeltsin had done when his alcoholism caught up with his brain.

In the same article, you can also see that Republicans did a Yeltsin to the United States and the GOP does not have the excuse that it was drunk while doing it.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/income-inequality-around-the-wo
rld-its-a-choice-not-a-destiny
/

To your questions, What has Trump done to help Russia? What are America's interests? Answer:

Over the course of 16+ months, President Trump has acted consistently and with some success to destabilize and break up the western alliance (both its formal manifestation in NATO) but also its less formal dimensions in trade and other partnerships. He has also worked consistently on really every front to advance the interests of Russia.

Less obviously to many Americans, he’s been doing something similar in East Asia. The U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea, which in recent years we’ve taken steps to extend to other states on the periphery of the East Asian landmass (which is basically to say, China) is not simply to protect against North Korea. It is to build a series of security relationships with countries on that periphery to act as a counterweight to the regional (perhaps world) great power, China. Allies in the region are closely watching President Trump’s apparent desire to remove U.S. troops from South Korea for that reason, among others.

The last twenty four hours of Trump's attacks on our closest allies capped by President Trump’s seemingly out of the blue demand to bring Russia back into the G-7 (making it again the G-8 which it was for most of the post-Cold War era until Russia was expelled over the annexation of Crimea) simply brings the matter into a newly sharp relief. If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.

Take a moment to let that sink in. I need to take a moment to let it sink in. It’s shocking to me. It’s shocking to me what’s happening. Now I said above “remotely realistic.” A critic of what I wrote above might note that Trump could, in fact, have taken steps to abrogate the NATO treaty commitments. He might have said publicly that the U.S. would not aid the Baltic states or Poland against a Russian invasion. We can also note that he has approved very limited sale of weaponry to Ukraine, which is of course still battling Russian proxy forces in the eastern part of the country. But the things he could have done but has not done really to me fall into the category of things that are unnecessary and probably still beyond what the President could remotely get away with.

Sanctions are an instructive example. The administration did finally impose a limited version of the sanctions Congress authorized early in Trump’s presidency. But on every sanctions front, it has been always absolutely as little as possible and always kicking and screaming. He has also been surrounded by people like H.R. McMaster and many others of a similar outlook, who clearly aren’t friendly to the strategic interests of Russia. So Trump has been operating to a degree within the constraints of U.S. public opinion and the heavy remonstrations of his top advisors. And yet … at every opportunity, he did everything he could realistically do to advance that agenda.

Back to the main point. We have a President who clearly got a great deal of assistance from Russia in getting elected. We can argue about how important it was to his victory. But the reality of the help is not in any real dispute. His campaign at a minimum had numerous highly suspicious contacts with people either in the Russian government or acting on behalf of the Russian government while that was happening. That is a very generous interpretation. He’s doing all the stuff he’d have been asked to do if such a corrupt bargain had been made. At a certain point – and I’d say we’re clearly at or past that point – it really doesn’t matter whether we can prove such a bargain was made. I’m not even sure it matters whether it was explicit or even happened. The bank robber helped the teller get the job and now the teller just won’t seem to lock the safe or even turn on the alarm. We can debate forever whether the teller is just absent-minded or has some odd philosophical aversion toward locks. The debate may be unresolvable. It truly doesn’t matter.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/weve-got-a-problem-a-big-problem

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, June 9, 2018 8:38 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

Nevertheless, Vladimir Putin is unquestionably a bad guy: he rigs elections, he tosses critics into prison, he’s built his populist cred on horrifically homophobic policy, he shuts down any media he doesn’t control, he threatens his neighbors, and he rules as an autocrat.
You seem to be speaking from complete and utter ignorance of Russia, like most people.

When Putin came to office, Russia had taken the worst drubbing of its recent history. It had just been treated to "shock treatment" from the western world that saw it economy de-industrialize and collapse by 30%, life expectancy drop by 6-7 years, mob bosses swoop in and claim vast swathes of Russian assets under the guise of "privatization", it's territorial claims shrink by 14% and its military sink into rusty oblivion. It was the kind of collapse that many are predicting for the United States. Putin reversed all that. The GDP rose by 200% (after falling under Yeltsin) and unemployment dropped by half. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/12/putin-generation-r
ussia-soviet-union
/ Putin's popularity is a bread-and-butter issue, as well as a national-pride issue. Only lately, under economic sanctions and political pressure from the West, has Putin used the Orthodox Church and militarism to glue the society together. But a man (and his staff) who dragged Russia out of the depths by the scruff of its neck is admired by many.

Also, There is far more diversity in Russian media than you imagine.

Quote:

It’s certainly no wonder that Trump seems to admire him. It’s pretty plain that Trump would like to rule that way too if he could figure out a way to do it.
The USA is on a financial slippery slope. We might NEED a leader who could "rule that way" ... and be damn grateful for getting one ... if our finances collapse like some are predicting (and I happen to think they are right).

Quote:

But it’s worth noting that this isn’t just about Russia. If Trump came to office and started doing everything in his power to help France and hurt the rest of Europe
Hello??? What has Trump done to "help Russia"? BE SPECIFIC.

Quote:

An American president isn’t obligated to literally ignore the interests of the rest of the world,
YES HE IS, if those interests are counter to ours. I have often asked What are America's interests? It is a question that you have DEEPLY ignored. I'm glad to see that you're FINALLY getting around to the topic, but I'm sure your interest will last until the next anti-Trump screed, and then you'll be off and riding that hobby-horse. A piece of friendly advice: Until you define "our" interests, you should probably keep your mouth shut before proclaiming that Trump is working against them because otherwise you'll sound like an idiot.

Does it seem ironic that the Libs which whine about Putin now saw no problem with Slick Willie pulling the rug out from under Russia and Yeltsin, right at the most critical time for transforming into a potential bastion of freedom, Democracy, and industrious economy?
All those decades of work by reasonable folk to end The Cold War, only to be squandered by the Perpetrator-in-Chief.

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Saturday, June 9, 2018 8:54 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.


How much do you get paid to act like an idiot? Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.

But, unlike you, I have a less corrupt view of the world, and I happen to (a) know quite a but more about economics than you do and (b) pay a lot more attention to world political economics than you do AND (c) I remember, very clearly, the USA media gleefully tooting its horn about how we were going to "reform" the Russian economy.

And fortunately, I'm not the only one who remembers recent history!

Quote:

In the wake of the 1990’s, the future of nascent post-Soviet Russia was in the hands of four groups of reformers, who were entrusted with applying a medicine known as “shock therapy” to a collapsing patient. These “doctors” were

independent foreign advisers,
the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
the US government, and, most importantly,
President Yeltsin’s administration (Aslund 2007a, 2007b).

Only the fourth was an internal group; the other three were external to the country. All four groups were, for the most part, committed to shock therapy. While no one was more invested in the cause than Yeltsin’s administration, the West, with its accumulated capital and experience, could have played a decisive [helpful] role – but it did not....

To understand how the doctors attempted to assist Russia, we must first understand the theoretical model from which they operated. The term “Shock Therapy” was an invention of the media and a modification of Milton Friedman’s phrase “Shock Policy.” Jeffrey Sachs (2000), a professor of economics at Harvard, argues that Ludwig Erhard’s quick liberalization of price controls and government spending cuts in 1947-48 West Germany served as an inspiration for the shock therapy model.[1] Yet shock therapy, as it is now known, was first pioneered in Chile in 1975 by the “Chicago Boys”[2] following Augusto Pinochet’s coup and then in Bolivia in 1985 under Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. Soon after, Eastern European countries followed suit: Poland in 1990, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria in 1991, Russia, Albania, and Estonia in 1992, and finally Latvia in 1993 (Marangos 2004).
Shock therapy is often associated with John Williamson’s Washington Consensus,

http://geohistory.today/russia-shock-therapy/



A lot of AMERICAN names in there, SECOND!

Quote:

Yeltsin could never wrap his brain around the proverb: A fool and his money are soon parted.
And YOU can never wrap your brain around the thought that there is something fundamentaly wrong with system the relies on wholesale rape of the many to benefit the few. Because, as they say, the chances of you understanding something when your pocketbook depends on you NOT understanding is minimal. Yeltsin believed in the hype about capitalism, he really thought that it would improve Russia. Unfortunately, he never looked at its victims and understood that that's what Russia was intended to be

Quote:

Putin, not brain damaged like Yeltsin, actually knows what he is doing, which makes all the difference in Russia’s improved fortune. Wouldn’t it be great to have an American President with a brain functioning half as well as Putin’s?
Yes. It would be nice. But you have to realize that Putin did more than just "not screw up", he had to actively undo the damage that had been wrought by the west and by Russia's (at that point) entrenched mob bosses/ oligarchy, who represented a problematic center of power. MUCH LIKE OUR OWN OLIGARCHY AND DEEP STATE.

Quote:

There are graphs available to show increasing inequality in Russia during the Yeltsin years. You can see that Putin only partially undid what Yeltsin had done when his alcoholism caught up with his brain.
Meanwhile, western press wrings its hands and cries long and loud about the poor Russian oligarchs! We can see which side WE'RE on: The side of money!

Quote:

In the same article, you can also see that Republicans did a Yeltsin to the United States and the GOP does not have the excuse that it was drunk while doing it.
You see, THIS is your problem: You pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to reality.

Go look at any chart of income inequality that you can find for the last 50 years or so.
Here's one on the GINI Index
https://www.statista.com/statistics/219643/gini-coefficient-for-us-ind
ividuals-families-and-households
/

Here's another
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA

Or how about this?


Or this?




No matter which kind of chart you choose, the increase in wealth inequality takes sharp upturn in the early 90's. WHO WAS PRESIDENT THEN, SECOND?

Increases in income inequality is INDISTINGUISHABLE between Clinton, Bush, and Obama. THAT'S the reality, SECOND. You're living in some fantasy world in which FDR is still President and Democrats still represent the average working stiff. You're just as much a fantasist as Yelstin so I wouldn't be TOO hard on the guy, if I were you! He was a drunkard ... what's your excuse?



Quote:

To your questions, What has Trump done to help Russia? What are America's interests? Answer:

Over the course of 16+ months, President Trump has acted consistently and with some success to destabilize and break up the western alliance (both its formal manifestation in NATO) but also its less formal dimensions in trade and other partnerships.

AND HOW DOES THIS AFFECT OUR INTERESTS? Don't just wave your hands in the air, because if the 'western alliance' is a net negative to our interests then maybe that's not such a bad thing. BE SPECIFIC AS TO WHICH INTERESTS ARE BEING THREATENED.
Quote:

He has also worked consistently on really every front to advance the interests of Russia.
SUCH AS? BE SPECIFIC.

Quote:

Less obviously to many Americans, he’s been doing something similar in East Asia. The U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea, which in recent years we’ve taken steps to extend to other states on the periphery of the East Asian landmass (which is basically to say, China) is not simply to protect against North Korea. It is to build a series of security relationships with countries on that periphery to act as a counterweight to the regional (perhaps world) great power, China. Allies in the region are closely watching President Trump’s apparent desire to remove U.S. troops from South Korea for that reason, among others.
DO you think it is in OUR interests to blow a giant hole in our budget to "defend" a large swath of the world against "them"? Do you think it is in OUR interests to enter trade deals which hand our judicial sovereignty over to trade tribunals? BE SPECIFIC.

Quote:

The last twenty four hours of Trump's attacks on our closest allies capped by President Trump’s seemingly out of the blue demand to bring Russia back into the G-7 (making it again the G-8 which it was for most of the post-Cold War era until Russia was expelled over the annexation of Crimea) simply brings the matter into a newly sharp relief. If candidate Trump and President Putin had made a corrupt bargain which obligated President Trump to destabilize all U.S. security and trade alliances (especially NATO, which has been Russia’s primary strategic goal for 70 years) and advance the strategic interests of Russia, there’s really nothing more remotely realistic he could have done to accomplish that than what he has in fact done.
Meanwhile, NATO is having its largest drill ever on the borders of Russia. Personally, I don't think it is such a terrible problem to make the NATO nations pay their fair share into keeping the alliance vigorous.

NATO'S prospects have more to do with its RECENT BUNGLING in the Mideast, such as the USA-fostered attempted coup in Turkey and using NATO forces in Libya.

Quote:

at to let that sink in. I need to take a moment to let it sink in. It’s shocking to me. It’s shocking to me what’s happening. Now I said above “remotely realistic.” A critic of what I wrote above might note that Trump could, in fact, have taken steps to abrogate the NATO treaty commitments. He might have said publicly that the U.S. would not aid the Baltic states or Poland against a Russian invasion. We can also note that he has approved very limited sale of weaponry to Ukraine, which is of course still battling Russian proxy forces in the eastern part of the country. But the things he could have done but has not done really to me fall into the category of things that are unnecessary and probably still beyond what the President could remotely get away with.

Sanctions are an instructive example. The administration did finally impose a limited version of the sanctions Congress authorized early in Trump’s presidency. But on every sanctions front, it has been always absolutely as little as possible and always kicking and screaming. He has also been surrounded by people like H.R. McMaster and many others of a similar outlook, who clearly aren’t friendly to the strategic interests of Russia. So Trump has been operating to a degree within the constraints of U.S. public opinion and the heavy remonstrations of his top advisors. And yet … at every opportunity, he did everything he could realistically do to advance that agenda.

AND HOW DOES THAT AFFECT OUR INTERESTS? Not "NATO's" interests, not "the west's" interests, but OUR interests?

The USA has been toting the financial load for decades and decades, defending 'the west' against "communism". That may have made sense at one time when Germany, France, Britain and indeed the whole EU were battered from WWII, but they are (as a whole) at least as economically successful as we are, and yet they STILL have the advantage of not having to pay full freight for their military defense, GIVING THEM A CLEAR ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE. If they truly think that defense from Russia (or China) is all that important, don't you think they would be ready to PAY for its maintenance? Poland is! What about the rest of the EU?

Quote:

Back to the main point. We have a President who clearly got a great deal of assistance from Russia in getting elected.
Ads which represented less than a tenth of a percent of total ad buys in the campaign? Really???
Quote:

We can argue about how important it was to his victory. But the reality of the help is not in any real dispute. His campaign at a minimum had numerous highly suspicious contacts with people either in the Russian government or acting on behalf of the Russian government while that was happening.
More baloney. They were fed the thought that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary ... fed that thought by (apparently) deep state operatives. But UNLIKE THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN, WHO PAID A FIRM MONEY TO ACTUALLY CONTACT RUSSIANS FOR DIRT ON TRUMP AND CONCOCT A "DOSSIER" FROM IT, THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN NEVER GOT ANYTHING FROM THE RUSSIANS.

Quote:

That is a very generous interpretation.
You're right ... it's generous, but not in the direction that you think.

Quote:

He’s doing all the stuff he’d have been asked to do if such a corrupt bargain had been made.
[ He's doing all the stuff HE SAID HE WOULD DO. Maybe if you had paid just a scintilla of attention to Trump's campaign, this wouldn't be such a shock to you, but he CLEARLY outlined this in his stump speeches! What the hell is wrong with you?? You're acting like this has given you PTSD, but in reality you should have seen this coming! This is just what The Donald promised!

Quote:

At a certain point – and I’d say we’re clearly at or past that point – it really doesn’t matter whether we can prove such a bargain was made. I’m not even sure it matters whether it was explicit or even happened. The bank robber helped the teller get the job and now the teller just won’t seem to lock the safe or even turn on the alarm. We can debate forever whether the teller is just absent-minded or has some odd philosophical aversion toward locks. The debate may be unresolvable. It truly doesn’t matter.
But how does this affect OUR INTERESTS?? What is being "taken" from us?

Other than the kind of reflexive "my team is losing" ... and possibly this is a game that we shouldn't even by playing ... what does this mean TO OUR INTERESTS? You have NOT YET defined our interests in a detailed practical manner. Like I said; BE SPECIFIC.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, June 9, 2018 9:42 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Ok, I'm going to summarize>

SECOND, like Texas football fans, you have a very reflexive view of politics. You divide the world up into "teams" and then respond to whether "your team" is "winning" or "losing", wasting much time and angst on what is nothing more than entertainment for the masses.

Have you ever considered that MAYBE there's not much difference in teams? That Dems and GOP are fundamentally the same, they have the same goals but just different colored jerseys? That maybe the "games" that we're playing are essentially meaningless? That just because one side is "winning" does not necessarily mean the other side is "losing"? Does Russia's improved economy mean that we're poorer? Isn't there a future where we can BOTH "win"?

*******

When I think about our interests ... and I DO think about our interests, probably quite a lot more than most on this board and certainly more than you, GSTRING and THUGR ... there are only four problems that cause my heart to drop and my stomach to churn, and they are all SELF CREATED.

1) Our petrodollar/ reserve currency status.
2) The size of our dollar-denominated debt (public and private)
3) The weakened and deindustrialized state of our economy.
4) The rampant separation of wealth.

These factors portend collapse, like 2008, but worse. Think Weimar hyperinflation, or Venezuela today. Russia and China aren't causing those problems.

You seem to have a special angst about the wealth gap, but fail to realize that capitalism/ monopolism DEPENDS ON that wealth gap. I think you should think a lot more about what's driving your reflexive responses, and come to understand the flaws in your own ideology.


-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, June 9, 2018 3:05 PM

JJ


Pro Russian anti American sig is at it again. I think you upset her G. She posted another book of propaganda. Keep it up buddy.

He sig, Putin sucks.

T


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Saturday, June 9, 2018 9:52 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
And SECOND's avid support should make anyone with half a brain mistrust the democrats even more.





SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:51 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:

Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.
And SECOND's avid support should make anyone with half a brain mistrust the democrats even more.



On the contrary, I think that Second has stated quite a few times that the Rich People and the policies they enact not only are responsible for why he is rich, but also for how he keeps getting richer.

I think the guilt he suffers for having so much while most others don't is the reason he posts what he does and so often contradicts himself here.

He's genuinely convinced himself of an entirely black and white world where Democrats represent everything good and Republicans represent everything bad. A world where if Democrats ever get the super majority that we'd be living in a Utopia where everything is fair for everybody. At the same time he knows that the chances that Democrats would ever have a super majority are next to nil, so he could never possibly be proven wrong because this will never happen.... and on the flip side, he will continue to benefit financially at the same time because he will never be proven right in his beliefs. This allows him to keep living in this fantasy world where it's not really his fault that he's rich. It's somebody else's fault.

This also allows him to shed a little of the guilt he suffers from by virtue signaling all day long to anybody who will listen.

When you catch him dead to rights doing this is when he shows his true colors and admits that he is very happy where he is at in life in respect to all of the rest of us, and that he's glad that we're all stupid so he can reap the benefits of the Evil Republican policies that give him the lifestyle that he enjoys so much.

Remember. It's not Second's fault that he is rich. He has nothing to feel guilty about. He's a Democrat and only votes Democrat. The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the Evil Republicans and those stupid and/or evil enough to vote for them.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 6:46 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Does it seem ironic that the Libs which whine about Putin now saw no problem with Slick Willie pulling the rug out from under Russia and Yeltsin, right at the most critical time for transforming into a potential bastion of freedom, Democracy, and industrious economy?
All those decades of work by reasonable folk to end The Cold War, only to be squandered by the Perpetrator-in-Chief.

JewelStaiteFan, you might ask why Trump wants to start a war this weekend with the G7 nations, rather than speculate about Slick Willie and winning the peace after the Cold War was over.

Was there any strategy behind Trump’s behavior at the G7 meeting? Well, it was pretty much exactly what he would have done if he really is Putin’s puppet. Trump yelling at friendly nations about sins they aren’t committing won’t bring back American jobs, but it’s exactly what Putin, who does want to break up the Western alliance, would like to see.

Alternatively, maybe Trump was just acting out because he couldn’t stand having to spend hours with powerful people who will neither flatter him nor bribe him by throwing money at his family businesses.

Trump demanded that the other G7 members remove what he called their "ridiculous and unacceptable" tariffs on U.S. goods – which would be hard for them to do, because their actual tariff rates are very low. The European Union, for example, levies an average tariff of only three percent on US goods. Who says so? The U.S. government’s own guide to exporters.

www.export.gov/article?id=European-union-Import-Tariffs

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 6:57 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.


How much do you get paid to act like an idiot? Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.

But, unlike you, I have a less corrupt view of the world, and I happen to (a) know quite a but more about economics than you do and (b) pay a lot more attention to world political economics than you do AND (c) I remember, very clearly, the USA media gleefully tooting its horn about how we were going to "reform" the Russian economy.

And fortunately, I'm not the only one who remembers recent history!

Unfortunately for you, Signym, you are blaming American conmen hired by drunken Boris Yeltsin. You know, Yeltsin could have fired them. He did not have to follow bad advice, just because he paid for it. I could have found Yeltsin some Americans who are real consultants that would not have given him obviously and excruciatingly bad economic advice. (Pawn state owned industries for 10% of what they are worth? What kind of drunk Russian leader would follow through on advice like that?)

Yeltsin has been gone since 1999, and the truth is that Russia, whose GDP is about now, in 2018, the same size as Spain’s and quite a bit smaller than Brazil’s, was always a ringer in what was meant to be a group of major economies called the G8. Russia was brought in for strategic reasons, and Putin got Russia kicked out when he invaded Ukraine.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=RU-ES-BR

Putin has been in charge for 18 years of the largest country in the world. Putin and the Russian people have vast natural resources, and the best they can do is fall behind Spain. The Russians might be slightly below average in competence.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 8:22 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Now watch, kiddos, and see how my last post goes completely ignored.

Methinks I hit the nail on the head.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 8:46 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Now watch, kiddos, and see how my last post goes completely ignored.

Methinks I hit the nail on the head.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Can I tell you a story? You might interpret it as virtue signaling. If you do, you are wrong. It is just a story. While flying across S Vietnam in a helicopter, the Sargent in the next copter was firing at women, children and water buffalo. Buffaloes, being big targets that don’t hunch down, were easy to hit. I was in the perfect position to shoot that Sargent in one door and out the other, blowing him out of the sky. His crew would believe he had fallen out, never knowing! It would have been classy shooting and instant justice like you only see in movies. Instead, I took it to the officers and I got punished, with much drama. After, I did not shoot water buffalo, although if you do not talk about it, you can do it. It was still wrong, since it wastes ammo and the goodwill of the Vietnamese. Other people had the opinion that it is only a buffalo. What’s the big deal? Since then, I’ve learned I can’t fix what is wrong with other people’s "thinking". 6ixStringJack’s and Signym’s, for example. What justice there is comes slowly, if at all. I could speed Justice up but I refuse to play the role of Judge Dredd or River Tam.

The following public service announcement is brought to you by common decency.

Hi, I'm Norm. Or Norma. I might be a Republican or Democrat. It doesn't matter. The point is, I'm your next president. Now, I'm far from perfect. Like anyone else, I make mistakes, get frustrated, and sometimes lose my temper. But here's what else I am. I'm nice, civil, serious, thoughtful, idealistic, responsible, honest, coherent. I'm educated, but I'm humble about what I don't know, so I read, listen, prepare. I work hard.

I value kindness. I'm empathic, grateful. I respect all people, but especially those who serve. I'm patriotic, and I cherish all our democratic institutions, particularly our Free Press. I worship a loving God.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I'm too good to be true. But I'm not. I'm what you'd expect from any president. You voted for me in the past and in two short years, you can vote for me again! So don't lose heart, America. Norm is on the way. Thank you. Did I mention I was polite?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 9:25 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Is this where SECOND derails an entire topic to talk about George Soros? Oh wait, that happened in ANOTHER thread http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62134.

THIS red herring, also brought to you by SECOND, is Boris Yeltsin!

*****

It seems SECOND that you're entirely incapable of thinking about, let alone discussing, America's interests.

Why is that? ETA ... Were you fooled by someone with a Big Idea once? Did you come to distrust all Big Ideas, or your ability to handle them? Do you think Big Ideas are dangerous and therefore you reduce every discussion to gossip about individuals? ...


******

BTW, I would never vote for Norm/Norma. Anyone who speaks and believes such pablum has mush for brains. How can s/he possibly call if the "free" press when it cost so much money???


-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 11:10 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


We already had Norm and Norma. Only their names were Barack and Michelle. Unlike Signy's take on Norm and Norma, I don't think that they have mush for brains at all. On the contrary, I think that people that are as polished as that are likely as intelligent as they are dangerous. Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?


I'll admit that Second's segway there wasn't as annoying as his usual segways, and the insults were rather muted. It still didn't address the actual post I made though because he knows that I'm right.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 3:40 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Instead, I took it to the officers and I got punished, with much drama. After, I did not shoot water buffalo, although if you do not talk about it, you can do it.
Since then, I’ve learned I can’t fix what is wrong with other people’s "thinking".
Since then, unlike Vietnam, I can't be touched by the thinking of other people. And not only am I immune from other people's thinking, I experience no negative consequences from any mistakes in my own thinking.
Being rich makes me right. Being rich lets me think it's everyone else who's fucked up. Being rich means I can tell everyone to fuck off. Being rich makes it OK for me to be a pompous, deluded, self-righteous asshole.

fify




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 6:34 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Is this where SECOND derails an entire topic to talk about George Soros? Oh wait, that happened in ANOTHER thread http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62134.

I thought that was every thread, the ones with posts by second/T/CC/JJ/G/pizmobeach.

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Sunday, June 10, 2018 6:43 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN



Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:

How much did Putin pay you to shift the blame to Americans? So long as incompetent Yeltsin was in charge, Russia was doomed.
How much do you get paid to act like an idiot? Oh, that's right .... you're fabulously rich, and so of course you would NEVER blame the wealthy or the policies that made you so.

But, unlike you, I have a less corrupt view of the world, and I happen to (a) know quite a but more about economics than you do and (b) pay a lot more attention to world political economics than you do AND (c) I remember, very clearly, the USA media gleefully tooting its horn about how we were going to "reform" the Russian economy.

And fortunately, I'm not the only one who remembers recent history!

I have major doubt about many people being able to remember recent history.

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Monday, June 11, 2018 8:17 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
We already had Norm and Norma. Only their names were Barack and Michelle. Unlike Signy's take on Norm and Norma, I don't think that they have mush for brains at all. On the contrary, I think that people that are as polished as that are likely as intelligent as they are dangerous. Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?


I'll admit that Second's segway there wasn't as annoying as his usual segways, and the insults were rather muted. It still didn't address the actual post I made though because he knows that I'm right.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I know you are wrong. All politicians, Democrat and Republicans, operate under the same restriction that prevent keeping their promises.

Why can’t politicians follow through on their most heartfelt promises? Because the voters would murder the politicians if they went all the way, no matter what, to keep their promises.

LBJ and Nixon promised a win, but America lost the Vietnam War because Americans wanted to quit when their deaths got to 50,000. Even if Nixon was willing, Americans weren’t willing to throw more bodies at that war because they didn’t care enough about the Vietnamese. How do I know? Remember the story about shooting S Vietnamese water buffalo from a helicopter? That’s how I know. You don’t kill the Vietnamese’s plow animals when you are willing to fight all the way to absolute victory, no matter what happens along the way, for the Vietnamese. The majority of Americans wanted to quit every week when the new casualty report came in. No politician can get reelected by being willing to throw another 100,000 dead on that pile, especially against the will of the majority of Americans. Americans just didn’t like the Vietnamese enough to do what was necessary to win.

In stark contrast, America won the Civil War because Americans were willing to throw 600,000 dead bodies at that war. Not all, but a fairly big majority of Americans truly wanted that win. It was worth the effort, unlike Vietnam. If Lincoln had fought the Vietnam War, he would have lost the same as Nixon because Americans didn’t care enough about Vietnam. No matter how great a President, Lincoln couldn’t win against the antipathy of the majority of voters about the fate of the Vietnamese.

West Virginia or 6ixStringJack is the new S Vietnam or the new Confederate ex-slave. A small percent of Americans might care about what happens to West Virginia or 6ixStringJack, but the majority do not. No politician can win against the antipathy of the majority of voters about the fate of people like 6ixStringJack. Do you remember what happened to the Vietnamese boat people or the slaves after Reconstruction ended? Neither crisis was America at its finest, because most Americans did not care what happened. 6ix is in the same boat with the boat people or ex-slaves. Most Americans don't care, therefore politicians are severely limited in how much they can care. The politicians can't do whatever it takes to solve certain problems because the majority of voters won't let them. The majority of voters don't care enough about those certain problems.

6ix might get some help for years, as Vietnam did because LBJ and Nixon were willing to lie to the max and cheat the American public, but it won’t be long enough for 6ix to win his war unless he does most of the fighting. Eventually even the biggest liar and cheater gets booted from office, before he has fulfilled his promises. The federal government (without a LBJ or a Nixon) will not fight very hard or long to save 6ix because American voters don’t want the government to help very much the people like 6ix. It is too expensive, too inconvenient, and 6ix is too unappealing. Maybe if he was a cute little puppy, but he’s actually a whiny, middle-age man who is happier not working. It is political suicide to help him. The voters would be furious if they learn their tax money is being spent on him. They don’t like him any more than they liked ex-slaves. It took a century for the descendants of slaves to get the rights that they should have had in 1870, if only a majority of American voters cared enough. When the majority of voters don’t care, politicians can’t make it happen. Lincoln couldn’t. Trump can’t.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, June 11, 2018 8:44 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Comparing Vietnam to the Civil War... lol

You're a character man.


I don't need anybodies help.

An even playing field would be nice though.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, June 11, 2018 9:30 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SECOND- I find your post such a mish-mash of bad assumptions and resentments I don't even know where to begin ...


Quote:

I know you are wrong. All politicians, Democrat and Republicans, operate under the same restriction that prevent keeping their promises.

Why can’t politicians follow through on their most heartfelt promises? Because the voters would murder the politicians if they went all the way, no matter what, to keep their promises. LBJ and Nixon promised a win, but America lost the Vietnam War because Americans wanted to quit when their deaths got to 50,000. Even if Nixon was willing, Americans weren’t willing to throw more bodies at that war because they didn’t care enough about the Vietnamese.- SECOND

OF COURSE they didn't "care enough" about the Vietnamese. Why should "they" (we)?

Quote:

Americans just didn’t like the Vietnamese enough to do what was necessary to win.
How can you possibly equate "liking" the Vietnamese" with "winning", especially "winning at all costs"? That's just flabbergasting! As I gather from your story, you were OK with shooting women and children, but not water buffalo? So, what would "winning" look like? And how were we supposed to "win"? Do you think that we should have bombed, burned, and shot even MORE Vietnamese (and Cambodians)?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, June 11, 2018 12:55 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


OOOH! I get to post whatever I want about SECOND, and SECOND ignores me! What an opportunity!




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Monday, June 11, 2018 1:00 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I couldn't help but notice that SECONAL STILL ignored Jacks' post:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
We already had Norm and Norma. Only their names were Barack and Michelle. Unlike Signy's take on Norm and Norma, I don't think that they have mush for brains at all. On the contrary, I think that people that are as polished as that are likely as intelligent as they are dangerous. Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?


I'll admit that Second's segue there wasn't as annoying as his usual segue, and the insults were rather muted. It still didn't address the actual post I made though because he knows that I'm right.

Do Right, Be Right. :)



And that's because ...




SECONAL is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Monday, June 11, 2018 3:23 PM

JJ


Russian elites met with NRA in lead-up to 2016 election

Prominent Russians were in contact with the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the lead-up to the 2016 election, McClatchy reported.

The Russians who met with NRA representatives during the 2016 presidential campaign included members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, according to the news outlet. Reportedly among the individuals identified are the former deputy prime minister overseeing Russia's defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin, and Sergei Rudov, the leader of the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation - one of Russia's largest philanthropies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/russian-elites-met-with-nra-in
-lead-up-to-2016-election-report/ar-AAyvdI1


T

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Monday, June 11, 2018 4:05 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Originally posted by JJ:
Russian elites met with NRA in lead-up to 2016 election

Prominent Russians were in contact with the National Rifle Association (NRA) during the lead-up to the 2016 election, McClatchy reported.

The Russians who met with NRA representatives during the 2016 presidential campaign included members of President Vladimir Putin's inner circle as well as the Russian Orthodox Church, according to the news outlet. Reportedly among the individuals identified are the former deputy prime minister overseeing Russia's defense industry, Dmitry Rogozin, and Sergei Rudov, the leader of the St. Basil the Great Charitable Foundation - one of Russia's largest philanthropies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/russian-elites-met-with-nra-in
-lead-up-to-2016-election-report/ar-AAyvdI1

former deputy ministers!! The Russian Orthodox Church!!! One of Russia's largest philanthropies!!!! They're coming after us!!! SANCTIONS!!!! We need TOTAL SANCTIONS against these Russians!!!




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Monday, June 11, 2018 4:45 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
I couldn't help but notice that SECONAL STILL ignored Jacks' post:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
We already had Norm and Norma. Only their names were Barack and Michelle. Unlike Signy's take on Norm and Norma, I don't think that they have mush for brains at all. On the contrary, I think that people that are as polished as that are likely as intelligent as they are dangerous. Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?


I'll admit that Second's segue there wasn't as annoying as his usual segue, and the insults were rather muted. It still didn't address the actual post I made though because he knows that I'm right.

Do Right, Be Right. :)



And that's because ...




SECONAL is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).


You'll notice the one post I keep referring to he hasn't even touched. In fact, it might be the single post I've seen from anyone that he hasn't quoted a single line of to begin one of his 10 paragraph segways into something completely different.

And that's because.....

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018 2:46 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I'm still trying to figure this one out
Quote:

Americans just didn’t like the Vietnamese enough to do what was necessary to win - SECOND
What does "liking" have to do with "winning"? SECOND? Care to explain?

Quote:

Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?- SIX
<<< THIS


-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018 3:30 AM

JEWELSTAITEFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm still trying to figure this one out
Quote:

Americans just didn’t like the Vietnamese enough to do what was necessary to win - SECOND
What does "liking" have to do with "winning"? SECOND? Care to explain?

Quote:

Who doesn't love somebody who always says exactly what everyone wants to hear?- SIX
<<< THIS

I have finally learned enough about second to understand that he doesn't have a clue about what was wrong with the Vietnam War, or why LBJ insisted upon losing it.
To be fair, I have been ignoring second alot lately.

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018 3:30 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm still trying to figure this one out
Quote:

Americans just didn’t like the Vietnamese enough to do what was necessary to win - SECOND
What does "liking" have to do with "winning"? SECOND? Care to explain?



I'm assuming he means that we as a nation did not care enough about the Vietnamese to keep throwing our sons over there to die until the Vietnamese we were supposed to care about ran out of bullets.


Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018 8:00 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I'm assuming we didn't 'like' the Vietnamese enough to keep bombing and poisoning them into oblivion. Does anyone beside me remember 'body counts', which was our measure of success in Vietnam?




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018 8:03 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
I'm assuming we didn't 'like' the Vietnamese enough to keep bombing and poisoning them into oblivion. Does anyone beside me remember 'body counts', which was our measure of success in Vietnam?



Yup.., that too.

Lots of reasons why his comparison of Vietnam to the Civil War is pretty crazy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, June 13, 2018 2:29 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SECOND .... I'm still vastly confused by your statement, which seems to conflate "liking" with "winning". I'm sure you have an explanation that makes sense, since you seem to have derived lessons from your Vietnam experience which have stood up to decades-worth of experience.

So, at least one of us is confused. Help me out here and tell me what you meant.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, June 13, 2018 6:43 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND .... I'm still vastly confused by your statement, which seems to conflate "liking" with "winning". I'm sure you have an explanation that makes sense, since you seem to have derived lessons from your Vietnam experience which have stood up to decades-worth of experience.

So, at least one of us is confused. Help me out here and tell me what you meant.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

It is the fundamental problem with language. Only telepathy will do what I need in as few words as I'm willing to use. Since Signym is not telepathic, the following probably won't clear up anything, either, but let me just say that a lot of soldiers (not all draftees, obviously, or the war would have been even crazier than it was) who went to Vietnam after 1970 were resentful that they were even there. They took out their resentment on the people who idealists like me were fighting for. They resented the South Vietnamese. That is a crazy way to fight: resenting the people you are there to defend. I, second, can't win all by myself when most of the people around me and most of those back in the USA don't think the war is worth fighting. Nuke all of Vietnam, North and South, declare victory and go home, was the best imaginable strategy for the resentful soldiers. Now imagine jumping forward in time by 40 years. A majority of Americans today live as if they are crazy with resentment. I've got an article on that subject:

Trump Takes the Politics of Resentment to the Global Stage
by Nancy LeTourneau, June 12, 2018

Jeffrey Goldberg went in search of the “Trump Doctrine” on foreign affairs. Here is the description that struck him as the best distillation:

I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.

“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:

“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world…

“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege.

What Goldberg just did is provide a perfect example of the politics of resentment, which is what attracted Trump supporters to him in the first place. Josh Marshall explained it this way:

People continue to marvel how a city-bred, godless libertine who was born to great wealth could become and remain the political avatar of small town and rural voters of middling means. The answer is simple. Despite all their differences, Trump meets his voters in a common perception (real or not) of being shunned, ignored and disrespected by ‘elites’. In short, his politics and his connection with his core voters is based on grievance. This is a profound and enduring connection.

The president and his supporters aren’t just raising their middle finger to American “elites,” they’re doing it to pretty much the entire globe. Jay Bookman described the politics of resentment as “a bone-deep cultural resentment that probably does not originate in politics, but that finds its outlet and expression in politics.” Another person Goldberg talked to described the Trump Doctrine this way:

“People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”

There is a bone-deep resentment that Donald Trump shares with his supporters and Barack Obama symbolizes everything they resent: a well-educated successful black man with the middle name “Hussein” who held the most powerful office in the world. As Andrew Breitbart famously said, “politics is downstream from culture.” That is the origin of the resentment that is finding it’s expression not just in domestic politics, but in foreign policy as well. These folks are giving a giant middle finger to the whole world and don’t give a shit about the consequences.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/06/12/trump-takes-the-politics-of-r
esentment-to-the-global-stage
/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, June 13, 2018 7:26 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:



Trump Takes the Politics of Resentment to the Global Stage
by Nancy LeTourneau, June 12, 2018

Jeffrey Goldberg went in search of the “Trump Doctrine” on foreign affairs. Here is the description that struck him as the best distillation: I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.
“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”
“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:
“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world…

“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege.
Or apparently the jobs, sustenance, health and lives of the average American.

What Goldberg just did is provide a perfect example of the politics of
resentment, which is what attracted Trump supporters to him in the first place. Josh Marshall explained it this way:

People continue to marvel how a city-bred, godless libertine who was born to great wealth could become and remain the political avatar of small town and rural voters of middling means. The answer is simple. Despite all their differences, Trump meets his voters in a common perception (real or not) of being shunned, ignored and disrespected by ‘elites’. In short, his politics and his connection with his core voters is based on grievance. This is a profound and enduring connection.
Why is there no analysis as to whether or not the average American has vital, life-altering things to be aggrieved about? OH! THAT'S RIGHT! We're just supposed to ASSUME these perceptions are not real, because they've been rhetorically dismissed.

The president and his supporters aren’t just raising their middle finger to American “elites,” they’re doing it to pretty much the entire globe. Jay Bookman described the politics of
resentment as “a bone-deep cultural resentment that probably does not originate in politics, but that finds its outlet and expression in politics.” God forbid anyone examine the economics of this 'resentment'.

Another person Goldberg talked to described the Trump Doctrine this way:
“People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”
Yes, people are dying younger to spite Obama.

There is a bone-deep
resentment that Donald Trump shares with his supporters and Barack Obama symbolizes everything they resent: a well-educated successful black man with the middle name “Hussein” who held the most powerful office in the world. Because, the whole no good jobs situation ... it's not really a factor. As Andrew Breitbart famously said, “politics is downstream from culture.” As Bill Clinton famously said, "it's the economy, stupid". That is the origin of the resentment that is finding it’s expression not just in domestic politics, but in foreign policy as well. These folks are giving a giant middle finger to the whole world and don’t give a shit about the consequences. The problem is, they've been given the middle finger, and have been living with the consequences too long.



The American lifespan declined for the second year in a row. Suicide was a big factor, as well as opioids.

I don't know if you've considered how difficult it is to change the average lifespan when you have all 350 million individuals contributing their personal years to the final number.

With average lifespan dropping, it seems there's far more going on than mere petulant 'resentment'. But the whole article seems to describe this 'resentment' as coming from nothing, and meaning nothing, except the outsized pout of a spoiled brat.

That's its problem, and yours, SECOND. The dismissal of the legitimate misery of millions. But if democrats don't address it, or even talk about it, people will vote for the person who does. As they well should.




SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

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