Trump was elected to change the neoliberal consensus

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beneficii
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19 Jan 2020, 10:34 am

I think Matt Stiller makes great points in a series of Tweets:

Quote:

Read this piece and explain how this condescending presentation telling an elected leader he can’t follow through on his agenda is anything but outrageous.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

“ He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”

How is this anything but reasonable?

“That phrase... disgusted not only the military leaders at the table but also those uniform sitting along the back wall... They all were sworn to obey their commander in chief’s commands, and here he was calling the war they had been fighting a loser war.“

So he wasn’t polite?

Systemic lying by generals and high level officials is not the issue, the problem is the elected President says true things in mean ways.

https://twitter.com/jgibbons1974/status ... 15777?s=20

Mattis patiently lecturing Trump on “why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America’s safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe” is insane. The guy was elected to change this. What did they expect?

Trump’s point about NATO is overstated but right. Our ‘allies’ do rip us off and don’t pay what they pledged to. And how many of them are installing Huawei equipment and acting like we’re not allies?

And by the way, when Bernie or Warren or anyone tries to renegotiate trade deals or end wars you can expect equally whiny BS from #NeverTrump neoliberal fools. Trump is bad but this is not about Trump, it’s about disciplining those outside the consensus.

I love that ex-Goldman Sachs CEO Gary Cohn, former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, and Theranos Board member Jim Mattis are the heroes in this story.

MSNBC #nevertrumpers can’t get dumber.

To be clear, I’m a liberal internationalist and a Democrat and I dislike Trump. But this story is about Trump violating DC norms about social climbing in front of fancy generals and bankers.

https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/stat ... 14528?s=21

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JohnPowell
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19 Jan 2020, 11:38 am

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

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shlaifu
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23 Jan 2020, 7:34 pm

He was elected to do it, but that's not he was intending to do, ever.
His behaviour is that of a third-world failed government. - the break with neoliberalism will come after Trump, when his voters will have lost all hope and start acting out of desperation. My guess is, there will be blood.

Systems rarely change without bloodshed, and historically, Gorbachev was the only major instance of a leader accepting defeat and semi-orderly unraveling a dysfunctional system. Violent revolutions are the historical norm.

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The_Walrus
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25 Jan 2020, 6:36 am

If the American people elect a president to put the Moon on a stick, then when xe gets to Washington xe’ll quickly be told that it is impossible to put the moon on a stick. There’s nothing outrageous or condescending about telling someone that something impossible is impossible. That’s the whole point of advisors.

Matt Stiller is an idiot.

Kraichgauer
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29 Jan 2020, 6:05 am

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

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Karamazov
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29 Jan 2020, 11:36 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

Indeed: Russia is still a heavily armed state with territorial ambitions which necessitate hostility towards the EU and hence also the US.
NATO is a necessary mechanism for shared intelligence, counter-intelligence and defence. If anything we need to enhance it at this current point in time.

JohnPowell
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29 Jan 2020, 12:35 pm

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

Jesus the ignorance is boring. Where do you guys read this horse manure?

NATO was there to counter the Soviet Union. When there was peace talks as it was collapsing, we promised not to move "one inch" further East in exchange also for Russia accepting the reunification of Germany (they had a right to reject given the past). Rather than keep to our promise we have more than doubled NATO's members and surrounded Russia with weapons and now pulled out of treaties. The last straw for them was the US coup in Ukraine in 2014.

You can all indulge in the absurd fantasises if it comforts you but reality is more important. The US is the aggressor.

Karamazov
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29 Jan 2020, 1:27 pm

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

Yes, commitments made at the time of the fall of the USSR to the successor Russian Federation were broken by the US and it’s allies.

But it is done.

The point is how are we, or rather our governments, to protect us from the consequences.

I’ll also note that whoever is in charge of Russia has a geopolitical interest in ensuring the the rest of Europe is a patchwork of mutually hostile petty states: this has been a constant of Russian foreign policy since at least Czar Peter the Great.
The promises were silly promises that could never be kept and arguably should never have been made in the first place.

Kraichgauer
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29 Jan 2020, 5:40 pm

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

Those countries, formerly Soviet satellites, had asked for NATO membership for fear of Russian tyranny.

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JohnPowell
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30 Jan 2020, 8:05 am

Karamazov wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

So basically Russians can't be trusted cause of their ethnicity so we might as well start WWIII? What are you reading that pushes you into this irrational thinking?

JohnPowell
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30 Jan 2020, 8:06 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

Those countries, formerly Soviet satellites, had asked for NATO membership for fear of Russian tyranny.

Sure they did :lol:

Karamazov
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30 Jan 2020, 10:23 am

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Karamazov wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

JohnPowell wrote:

Yet he's betrayed voters by his actions with Iran.

There shouldn't even be a NATO. It was there to fight the Soviet Union. Which no longer exists.

An aggressive Russia is still there, and is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire, AKA, the Soviet Union.

So basically Russians can't be trusted cause of their ethnicity so we might as well start WWIII? What are you reading that pushes you into this irrational thinking?

Nothing to do with their ethnicity: Russia in my view is, and has been for centuries amongst the greatest and most profound of the western cultures, their achievements in literature and music in particular are equal to those of any other people you may care to mention throughout known history.
The issue is one of geopolitical deadlock: Russia has no clear and definitive western border, just the open fields and marshes of the north European plain.
This compels any Russian regime regardless of constitution and ideology to regard any powerful state in Central Europe, or any unity among Central and Western European people’s as a potential threat to its existence, and act accordingly. This would be true for the leaders of any and every ethnic group on the planet were they to be in the same position.
No Russian government has ever tolerated unification or alliance between the French and the Germans if they can find a way to break it.
No Russian government has ever tolerated an independent Poland if they can find allies to suppress it.
This is the sorrowful situation that geography gives unto us.
So with all love to the Russian people, and with hope they may one day have, for the first time in history, a government worthy of them: we have no choice but to oppose Putin and his regime whenever, and wherever, we may practically do so.

JohnPowell
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30 Jan 2020, 12:03 pm

You're conflating Russia now with the Soviet Union. It's like conflating Germany today with Nazi Germany.

Karamazov
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30 Jan 2020, 12:45 pm

JohnPowell wrote:

You're conflating Russia now with the Soviet Union. It's like conflating Germany today with Nazi Germany.

No, merely, and wearily, noting repeating themes of Russian foreign and military policy over the last 400 years: and the pragmatic rational reasons for this continuity.
I’m not so daft as to regard the delusion revolutionary socialists of 1917-91 as the same as the Jesus rinsed fascists of now (or the hereditary military strongmen that preceded 1917 for that matter).
Ideology changes. Technology changes. Faces change.
But the vulnerabilities and advantages of geography don’t.

JohnPowell
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30 Jan 2020, 3:46 pm

We supported neo Nazis in Ukraine to overthrow the elected government and then installed a puppet that was going to outlaw the Russian language. That's why there was a referendum. You completely ignore Russia losing 25 million people and then a revolution basically against communism. They have changed but our powers that be are the same psychopaths.

You can start the story in the Middle if you want and blame Russia's reaction to our actions and you can believe a lot of the fantasies created by blood thirsty psychopaths.

Karamazov
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30 Jan 2020, 4:31 pm

You appear to be under the impression that moral sentiment is an appropriate tool of analysis.

It isn’t.

But it can be very handy after the analysis is done.

Good try at winding me up though! 8.5/10

I almost posted a long post with multiple mini-chapters on all sorts of interesting historical byways, ideological classifications a so forth.

Happy Thursday!

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