Trump makes fool of himself with lack of knowledge on Ukraine

What?

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Or of the economy to come: if technology has advanced during the downturn, there will be no need to hire back the same amount of help as before.

Compensation grows because nobody challenges it. Say what you will about socialism, it provided an ideological platform that could be used to moderate the excesses of capitalism. Now there is nothing: greed is good, entrepreneurs are heroes, the poor are lazy, and “fuck you, I got mine” rules. Which is the logical conclusion of a society that refuses to challenge the assumption that life should be organized around the capitalist market.

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Some of them don’t give a shit (likely because they wouldn’t know where the Ukraine is on a map themselves), but the scary thing to me is that a great deal of them see it as a positive. On several occasions, NPR and other news organizations have asked people about Trump’s vagueness and inexperience at Trump rallies, and the consensus has been that his followers like the fact that he’ll be “learning on the job”; to them, Trump’s inexperience and outsider status means he hasn’t “sold out”. So showing a Trumpy that their boss is clueless won’t help.

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True enough that futures forecasting and technology push can in fact alter the job market including causing recessive hiring in a particular area/field; however that is usually contrasted by growth elsewhere. Team A finished some great new build a device or software. While Team A then has their force reduced considerably because continued development doesn’t require as much effort or any effort at all; there is a subsequent increase in work force for the support or maintenance of it, the sales or marketing and distribution, etc. Its a give and take normally speaking. There are exceptions of course.

The problem is capitalism is good. It creates an open market competition and can help push lower prices for goods and services as competition is abound. It does however require regulation to maintain this. The massive amounts of deregulation since Reagan was elected has created monopolies in certain sectors. As a result capitalism doesn’t work. And the issue around Socialism is that when we talk about a socialist economy its Communism, and as an institution it it encourages a monopoly to exist. Democratic Socialism (like in Europe) is economically speaking a capitalist economy. They push for free trade and expansion as well as competitive goods and service offerings. They also regulate the hell out of it (some could argue too much) to maintain a healthy consumer environment.

In the end the executive compensation grew as it did because they did it to themselves. The foxes were put in charge of the hen house and gorged themselves with no oversight or regulations to hold them back.

Executives are like Tribbles. They will just eat and eat and eat and reproduce. Unless someone stops them.

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Sorry let me try again.

So I wrote neoconservative not neo-liberal. I suggest there is a substantive difference although perhaps you feel there isn’t. I would suggest that one pertains to us foreign policy and the other is a ideology/school of thought regarding the analysis of political economy and economics. I didn’t mean to act either superior or inferior but just to react to certain statements in posts. I don’t know who anyone’s gonna vote for but I do think echoing the media criticisms of the odious Trump is plain silly. The media hate him and he certainly doesn’t reflect my political preferences but there is no basis for the idea that one candidate is “good” at FP and one is bad. It’s true that people think one candidate is an idiot, and the other is a woman. However I think the woman’s fp, has been an unmitigated disaster for every country that was unfortunate enough to have her attention. Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran etc. Let me know if you would argue that US FP had been a success, even for the US itself.

By all means support any candidate you like and make any comments you like. But why get unhappy when a stranger point out that Trumps views on US Russia relations are supported by Prof. Cohen at Princeton, while HRCs are supported by the leading Neoconservatives in the US?

Trump is an odious candidate in many ways, but I think he is clearly superior to HRC in FP. Imho.

Just to be clear, you feel that the man who wants to dissolve NATO, is apparently being paid by Russia, has already dangerously antagonized China and has made the UK and EU clear that they are the enemy of the US, and who wants to build a physical wall between ourselves and our nearest neighbors (after calling them rapists) has a better foreign policy record than the secretary of state whose FP is essentially a more experienced version of what Obama’s already been doing?

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Thanks for being a bit more expansive with your comments. We do appreciate that here and prefer people to engage rather than make assumptions.

For the difference between neoliberal and neoconservative, you’re right that they are distinct, but it’s clear the two work hand in hand.

Sure, if you dig empowering racist troglodytes on the home front, he’s great. But if you think he’s going to have a less bellicose FP, I think you’re mistaken. As problematic and imperial Clinton’s FP might be, she will also actually work with our allies rather than attempting to dictate (at least on the surface). Trump will seriously throw in our lot with Putin, which is not really acceptable either, IMHO. It’s pretty clear that Putin is an aggressive actor in the region (which is in part driven by the expansion of NATO). While continued aggression aimed at Putin won’t help, do you honestly think just letting him do whatever he pleases will help either?

Neither party has a FP which I support and I suspect that’s true of many here. We’re not going to get out of the Middle East or work for an end to hostilities, no matter who we elect- and that’s not just a problem we can lay at Clinton’s feel. It’s long standing policy in the region that has led us here. There are no good options in Europe as it slides into a divided continent again.

I honestly don’t want racist assholes running this country. Trump has already empowered people like David Duke to be more open and engaged in the political process. That’s completely unacceptable to me. Trump will not “fix” FP as you like it, no matter what you think. He’s ignorant and will turn FP over to whoever the republicans ask him to. Do you think they will be any better than Clinton?

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I don’t think Amazon or Starbucks benefit from monopolies created from deregulation; still, they are part of the problem, because they centralize profits and drive down wages by design. They do nothing wrong from a capitalistic point of view, and have plenty of competition – but they still make inequalities grow. It’s not just about regulation: an efficient capitalist market extracts as much profit as possible from as small (and underpaid) a worker pool as possible. That’s just how it works. How would regulation fight that? It can’t. The only way to fight that is through unionization and artificial scarcity of workers’ pools, by forcing profit redistribution or by capping profits (the last two being basically the same thing). Either approach is anathema to freemarketers and current politicians.

As an European, let me tell you that our way of life is on its way out. The last 20 years were all about following the triumphant US model by cutting services, privatizing, deregulating, reducing workers’ rights and letting the wildest spirit run free. Even France capitulated this year. The TTIP will hoover up the rest.

No oversight is possible in the current ideological climate. If the search for profit is good and sanctioned, that’s just what they’re doing – why should they be stopped?

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So I agree that neo liberals are often neoconservatives but not always. I happen to be convinced that based on both candidates public statements Trump is a less concerning candidate from the fp point of view. Of course I’m not always right but I can explain why I think it. HRC was the main sponsor of the Libyan intervention. The Libyan intervention cost good knows how many lives in total in a country which war not democratic but did have free health care and free university tuition. But it also resulted in an estimated 40k dead black Africans. That is because jihadis were used as a proxy force to effect regime change and the Jihadis are incredibly racist against black Africans.

She had in mind a similar policy against Assad, which if enacted would result in half the population of the country needing to flee because they are “apostates”. The allies will do whatever the us says. It’s true the poles are afraid of the Russians but these fears are not rational. Russia is weak. I do not understand why Russia is considered an enemy of the us at all, while KSA and Israel are considered allies. It seems to me the issue is whether to maintain empire or to step back. HRC is the imperial candidate. Donald the orangutan is the isolationist.

As for racists in the WH how is that in anyway exceptional? GWashington was a racist. As was lincoln etc. Obama isn’t a racist but his term had seen the biggest decline in black people’s material conditions since they keep records. And Hillary has told us all about “superpredators” while taking money from companies which lock them up. I know we are meant to care about racism and I do. Of course being black I can be sensitive to the subject. But right now I just wanted to address this idea that one candidate is good at FP and one is bad. It’s just not true. One candidate speaks intelligently and has damaged US interests and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of generally innocent people. The other is a retard in a wig.

With international backing. None of that happens without the invasion of Iraq. If we’re going back to modern (rather than reaching back into the Cold War for explanatory events for the current situation), then the major event that utterly destabilized the region was the Iraq war… all stems from that, I’d argue. No republican is going to repudiate that war and our continued intervention in the cold war between the Saudis and Iran. No one in either major party is pulling us out of there. I wish it were different, but Trump is going to further destabilize the situation by likely sending in ground troops to deal with Daesh, and possibly Iran.

You do realize it’s a 2 way street. Putin isn’t some innocent in driving tensions between Russia and the US/NATO. He’s just as responsible for where we are as we are.

Of course it’s not totally exceptional. But the point is that he’s newly empowered racist elements in our society, against African Americans, against, Muslims and Muslim Americans, and against Latinos. People who are literally white supremacist have Trump’s back. It’s takes a serious blind spot not to understand how problematic that is.

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Well Trump is right. Putin isn’t in Ukraine. The Russian army yes, but not Putin.

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Slash actively welcome chaos.

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Let us know when Trump has changed as much as she has.

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Yeah wrote that in a hurry (and a little drunk) - I stand corrected as you point out.

He lied about getting a letter from the NFL regarding the debate schedule (a total fabrication). And then stood by the lie. He’d be impossible to bargain with because he has no problems walking back something he said twenty minutes ago, but he also has no problem doubling down on his utter and complete fabrications. Could this person negotiate, or even begin negotiations, with other nations? And even if he was able to cajole a nation-state into negotiating something, why the hell would they take anything he says at face value?

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I mean it’s not like he’s got someone RUNNING HIS CAMPAIGN who would know anything about Ukraine…

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Hey now that’s not fair to Plankton.

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So yes, thats precisely what I am saying. Although I would dispute some of your suggestions with respect to Trump’s FP statements.

Do you really suggest he is being paid by Russia or are you just including that for effect? I say bull. Dissolve NATO? no he said ask for contributions. But of course no one will contribute cos NATO isnt an alliance. After all, what is it meant to be guarding against? NATO is an imperial expression of power for the US. I doubt the Libyans were really a threat to NATO but they got bombed by it anyway didnt they? The UK does not think it is the enemy of the US. Neither does the EU. And there is a physical wall between you and Mexico. And it is being expanded. What the Donald wants to is ask Mexico to pay for it. Which is absurd I grant you.

Now lets consider HRCs FP contribution.

  1. Iraq. Success?
  2. Libya? Success? 40k dead black people and no government. Mass migration from Libya to Europe.
  3. Ukraine? Success? Remember Vicky Nuland passing out cookies in Kiev?

Tell you what. You show me Sec.State Clinton’s FP success cos I cant see it. I just see half a million dead in Iraq and Syria and god knows how many in Libya. Maybe it depends how you define success?

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Yeah, his habitual lying would be at least as destructive as his ignorance and lack of intellectual capacity - and this is already clear to foreign heads of state because they’re following the campaign. So they’d not want to have anything to do with him directly from the start, would they? His ability to negotiate, in between not knowing the situation or issues, not being liked and not being trusted, would be totally destroyed.

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