The Many Faces of US Politics...

[stew]

Thinking about this more, we have lived for the last few decades in the post Soviet Union era. Countries in Eastern Europe left the USSR, joined the EU and even joined NATO.

Along with the UN, the latter 2 organisations were created to prevent another World War. And they succeeded.

Now the UN is redundant, Britain has pulled the plug on the EU, while the US has elected a President who wants to scale down NATO and appears to be under the influence of a particularly menacing Russian dictator.

Yesterday may look, to future historians, as the inexplicable end to a great era.

You are an absolute tool, even you don't believe the President elect is 'under the influence' of anyone let alone that Russian kn**ker!

If you don't believe the shite you spew say fack all you ass hat!

[seafoid]

So the Dems win the popular vote and lose the election for the second time in five elections.

Won six of last seven too.

Will that rein the GOP and Trump in?

Or will it be a case of making hay while the sun shines?

a lot of republicans in the senate and house will not vote with Trump

I hope

Doubtful, but even if true, that does nothing to hamstring the harmful effects of installing right wing political appointees to the various departments.

Get ready for climate deniers controlling the Interior department and lots of federal lands opening up to drilling and mining; rolling back of environmental and ecological protections; lower enforcement of environmental, worker and consumer protection laws and so on and on.

Brexit is the same. They have to get out of the EU to drop the worker protections. 
They sold poor voters a fantasy of deals that won't happen.  Trump sold US bluecollars a budget that would have blown up the US treasury. All vague and emotional. Details irrelevant  .

It is extremist. Generating value by driving labour conditions down. Wilbur Ross of Bank of Ireland fame is in the inner circle. Brexit looks like a failed ultra right wing coup. Trump looks like one that succeeded.

[seafoid]

Serious amount of drama queens around the world. He won. The sky did not fall in. Get over it and get on with your lives. You never know, he may even do a reasonable job. As Clinton said herself, he deserves a chance to lead.

+1. It won't make a damn bit of difference to my life.

Oh yes it will!

How exactly ?

I'm still waiting on brexit making a difference... would need to be worse than than the bank failure otherwise it's actually ok

It starts with the Toblerones, MR

I don't think there will be much duthracht in the UK for the next while.
But let's see.

[stew]

Whitelash is being blamed On Trump winning the presidency, yes folks some in black America are blaming angr white Americans on Trump being elected, they forget that white America got Obama elected and by the way, ALL Americans should embrace the decision the country made.

I am sick and tired of liberals not owing results, I am tired of their apathy toward the indigenous people of the Americas, I am appalled at their lack,of morality having clinton run representing them, I am sickened by Obamacare and it's skyrocketing costs and I am tired of the lack of respect people have for the office of President, thanks Billy.

[heganboy]

Thinking about this more, we have lived for the last few decades in the post Soviet Union era. Countries in Eastern Europe left the USSR, joined the EU and even joined NATO.

Along with the UN, the latter 2 organisations were created to prevent another World War. And they succeeded.

Now the UN is redundant, Britain has pulled the plug on the EU, while the US has elected a President who wants to scale down NATO and appears to be under the influence of a particularly menacing Russian dictator.

Yesterday may look, to future historians, as the inexplicable end to a great era.

You are an absolute tool, even you don't believe the President elect is 'under the influence' of anyone let alone that Russian kn**ker!

If you don't believe the shite you spew say fack all you ass hat!

Sooooooo touchy

[Oraisteach]

Stew, I wouldn't embrace Donald Trump if I were wearing a Hazmat suit, no more than I would have embraced Ian Paisley at the high point of his demagoguery. He embodies everything I loathe.  No need to enumerate his flaws now.  And if he appoints Giuliani and Gingrich to his cabinet, between the three of them they have amassed nine wives.  This is old school Mormon family values. Book of Mormon, the Sequel.

I do think whitelash is a key factor in Clinton's defeat, a reaction to a number of factors beyond her exaggerated unlikeability--an anti-Obama racism fueled by inherent white racism in America and further stoked by a white electorate that gets its facts from propaganda mills like Breitbart, a racism legitimized by a Republican pledge to obstruct all Obama initiatives.

Of course, Dems should blame themselves too for their smugness, but Trump is right when he says that the election is rigged.  It is.  The Electoral College system is anachronistic and fundamentally undemocratic.  Once again, Dems won the popular vote but not the election.  Absurd.  Add to that the composition of the Senate.  How is it democratic that Rhode Island, a state slightly bigger than Longstone, Bambrook and Lisnally Gardens, gets two senators while California, with an economy larger than France's also gets two?

It is a very dark day here in the States, and I fear for the marginalized under a Trump kingship, and to make matters worse, he is the very antithesis of Plato's philosopher king, he is the embodiment of ignorance. 

I accept the will of the people but don't have to like it, especially since the gullible were motivated by raw appeals to the worst in human nature.  And don't misunderestimate, to quote Bush, the number of adult white males unwilling to accept a woman president.

I have not felt this low since 911.

[Far East]

Whitelash is being blamed On Trump winning the presidency, yes folks some in black America are blaming angr white Americans on Trump being elected, they forget that white America got Obama elected and by the way, ALL Americans should embrace the decision the country made.

I am sick and tired of liberals not owing results, I am tired of their apathy toward the indigenous people of the Americas, I am appalled at their lack,of morality having clinton run representing them, I am sickened by Obamacare and it's skyrocketing costs and I am tired of the lack of respect people have for the office of President, thanks Billy.

Never had you down as advocate of the plight of the native Americans! Please inform us of your activism in this area. I assume you're in North Dakota protesting the destruction of sacred land?  And all this time I thought you were a bitter, right wing plastic Paddy!  I apologise....

[muppet]

Thinking about this more, we have lived for the last few decades in the post Soviet Union era. Countries in Eastern Europe left the USSR, joined the EU and even joined NATO.

Along with the UN, the latter 2 organisations were created to prevent another World War. And they succeeded.

Now the UN is redundant, Britain has pulled the plug on the EU, while the US has elected a President who wants to scale down NATO and appears to be under the influence of a particularly menacing Russian dictator.

Yesterday may look, to future historians, as the inexplicable end to a great era.

You are an absolute tool, even you don't believe the President elect is 'under the influence' of anyone let alone that Russian kn**ker!

If you don't believe the shite you spew say fack all you ass hat!

Stew, you just voted for Putin's man. 

You need to turn off Hannity and read some news from around the world: http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-11-09/russian-leaders-literally-cheer-trumps-victory

And you should read more about Trump's choice of campaign manager: http://fortune.com/2016/08/15/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-paul-manafort/

And you can wonder why former Russian guest Julian Assange only targeted Democrat private emails. His statement yesterday wasn't very convincing I thought: https://wikileaks.org/Assange-Statement-on-the-US-Election.html

Or instead you can rant absurdly for our entertainment. And what is an 'ass hat'?

Anyway....

хорошего дня

As you will all be saying soon.

[seafoid]

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

(Although known most widely in its abbreviated form above,
the entire prayer reads as follows...)

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

My mother is a great fan of that prayer. I think it's too passive. Outside of emotional stuff with women most things don't happen by accident.
The bank crash in 2010 was no fluke. I think we trust institutions far too much. We think they are led by competent people. They aren't necessarily.

One of my favourite quotes is from Brian Cowen

"We had to make decisions with the information that was available to us at the time. Of course mistakes were made. If we had known what we know now different decisions would have been made".

All the people who warned FF about risk had committed suicide on the orders of Bertie. So when the Wolf turned up all they knew about the banks could be written on the back of a fag packet.
PadraiG Flynn's brother took his own life. That is how exposed FF people were in the end.
The line between what we can and cannot change is hazy.
Is ar scáth a chéile a mairimid.

[bennydorano]

Yeah but getting wound up by who is the US President falls firmly within it's remit - unless someone is motivated to assasinate him.

[The Gs Man]

Lads, as my dear old 95 year old granny says, "There's no point putting your hands on your arse after you've shit yourself."

[seafoid]

Great post, Oraisteach

I think there are 2 ways to respond to deflation and economic collapse

1. Work for payrises, wealth redistribution and workers rights
2. Turn up the hatred and head towards war

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/24/iraq.martinwoollacott
I love Americans," said Joe Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "but they're so easily moulded." He was referring to the rallying around the flag and the troops which war has brought, a surge of feeling manifest in a wave of genuine sympathy but also in commercial opportunism of the kind that offered Washington Post readers yesterday the chance to buy a four-inch-high figurine of a teddy bear in combat gear entitled Front Line of Freedom

[seafoid]

Rap has been dealing with chaos and systematic injustice  for a long time
Some of the stuff is lot more relevant than Katy Perry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ5rI461KNE

Got a bevy of imps to spit hatred
Shit'll get in your head and cause panic
Have you desperately begging to get famous
Get your dignity dirty and left orphaned
Sanity on the fringe of distorted
Who are they to just take shit and hoard it?
Who am I that I don't get my portion?
The most impressionable minds get molested and informed by manipulating forces

[seafoid]

Flame you quicker than Trump f*cks his youngest


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUC2EQvdzmY

[macdanger2]

Clinton was a bad candidate.

Stupid Goddam Democrats.

Dunno. Somebody in politics as long as Hilary is going to have a few stains but I'm not sure they could have done better. I like Bernie Sanders but I think he would have been destroyed as well. Trump would just have targeted him in a different way. He'd have been labelled as socialist, commie-loving, liberal, soft on emigration/crime etc. It would be emails, Benghazi, lock-her-up tactic in a different guise. Trump's electioneering was just a means to an end. One of the best brain washing campaigns ever. The key was to keep the message simple and repetitive and avoid policy and minute. They pulled it off brilliantly. Probably because they targeted a sizable % of people that will believe something they want to hear, especially if they hear it often enough.
Notice the change in difference in Trump's body language in acceptance speech. The exaggerated hand gestures were well toned down. I suspect everything will be toned down now. Becoming President is an end for itself for this man I suspect.

I don't think the Trump voters are brainwashed. For many of them, I think they have real problems (lack of jobs, decline of communities, etc) which haven't been addressed by recent govts. Along comes a candidate who at least acknowledges their concerns and says he's going to do something about it. Since he's the only one talking to them, they're willing to dismiss all the racist, misogynist things he says (that doesn't mean they agree with him, just that they're looking out for themselves first).

Like with Brexit, it's easier to label trump voters as stupid & ignorant rather than attempting to understand why they voted for him and trying to address their constituency next time around (with REAL policies rather than just rhetoric)