TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[Joao]

Germany had to go through it. Hell, all of Europe had to go through it. The US has to go through it. Which means it's going down.

The more mature nations of the world (including Germany) need to make sure this happens without WW3 forcing the issue.

That's a very interesting idea.. Your own, or can you point to any further discussion? Thanks for giving me something to think about.

[Nordic]

Germany had to go through it. Hell, all of Europe had to go through it. The US has to go through it. Which means it's going down.

The more mature nations of the world (including Germany) need to make sure this happens without WW3 forcing the issue.

That's a very interesting idea.. Your own, or can you point to any further discussion? Thanks for giving me something to think about.

If the view was inspired by any particular person, I don't remember. I think maybe it's because I was born in Germany and spent many formative years there growing up. When I came back to the US there was some culture shock. The USA has always seemed like an adolescent nation. They are probably the only country involved in WW2 who think that it was just a great experience and constantly glorify it in the media. "The Greatest Generation" and "Band of Brothers" and so on and so forth. Everyone else involved thinks of it as a fucking horrible nightmare that we better make damn sure never happens again. As opposed to the US's adolescent fantasies of being a glorious savior/warrior.

Thus the US leading the world to more and more war, to the point where they are a tually trying very hard to start WW3. First in Ukraine and now in Syria. And Russia, who lost 25 million in WW2, has blocked them both times.

[Elvis]

Germany had to go through it. Hell, all of Europe had to go through it. The US has to go through it. Which means it's going down. The more mature nations of the world (including Germany) need to make sure this happens without WW3 forcing the issue.

This made me curious as to which are the oldest nations -- I know, not "maturest," but this list (cobbled from Wikipedia) is interesting nevertheless:

<drumroll>

Top Ten Oldest Nations of the World

#10 — Korea (676 AD)

#9 — United Kingdom (519 AD)

#8 — France (481 AD)

#7 — Mongolia (209 BC)

#6 — Japan (660 BC)

#5 — Iran (678 BC)

#4 — Ethiopia (980 BC)

#3 — Israel (1050 BC)

#2 — Afghanistan (1500 BC)

#1 oldest nation in the world — China (1800 BC)



Does experience count for much in the nation business? Or is it all about which school you went to?

The different dates may mean different things, may be disputed etc., e.g. Israel hasn't been a sovereign state continuously since 1050 BC, but the dates in that chart are the year of formation.

It seems odd that the earliest date given for Egypt is 1922. (!)

(Hm, might be interesting to look at the edit history of the page I got the 'data' from.

Germany is a relative beginner—1871. Though I'd say that 'kind-of-Germany' was there well before 1871; in any case, I'd say Germany is ten times more mature than the U.S.

[seemslikeadream]

11/19/2015

Donald Trump Is a Scarier Terrorist Than Anyone from ISIS (Updated)
It's become perfectly clear that GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has decided that the best way to overcome terrorism is by being more of a terrorist than the terrorists themselves. What separates Trump's use of fear as a campaign tactic from every other candidate doing so is that, for Trump, it's an unabashed attempt to demonize, isolate, and punish people for their identities. Others may do two of those three things, like Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush, but only Trump pushes his rhetoric to the point where he's obviously talking about violence against innocent people abroad, as in "bomb the shit out of them," and, more importantly, here in the United States.

This is what Trump told Yahoo News, in an interview published today, about what he'd do as president about Syrian refugees who are let into the United States during the Obama administration: "They’re going to be gone. They will go back...I’ve said it before, in fact, and everyone hears what I say, including them (the refugees), believe it or not. But if they’re here, they have to go back, because we cannot take a chance. You look at the migration, it’s young, strong men. We cannot take a chance that the people coming over here are going to be ISIS-affiliated." Trump said he would be willing to look into issuing Muslims special identification, which would have to be something akin to "show me your papers" or a cloth crescent and star, perhaps, worn on one's garments. And he has said that mosques need to come under scrutiny or perhaps be closed. This is not to mention that he wants to start up warrantless surveillance of Muslim communities.

On undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America, in addition to his wall, Trump has said that he will deport all 11 million people currently in the United States illegally. He'd end birthright citizenship, and he'd stop issuing green cards for a period of time. And if you think he's moderated his tone since June, when he called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and criminals, just last month, Trump offered a take on Mexicans that was straight out of the Archie Bunker book of insults: "I mean, the way our country is run, if it doesn't happen to be me that wins, you know what's going to happen? They're going to build a plant and illegals are going drive those cars right over the border. And they'll probably end up stealing the cars." Of course, the crowd cheered madly.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is promising to tear apart the families of millions of people and send thousands back to be killed or abused in Syria. This is not to mention the paranoia, no, the terror that Trump wants to instill in the legal immigrants who are here or the American Muslims who have lived in this country for several generations. And what if someone resists carrying an i.d. card, like an American citizen? Will they be arrested? Beaten? Shot by cops? Trump has no compunction about widespread punishment or about rallying the nationalist idiots for some kind of restoration of an older America, a goal that is not that different from those who want a caliphate. And this doesn't even get into his China-phobia.

Yeah, many others have said the obvious, that Trump is now essentially a fascist without the coherent ranting of a Hitler or Mussolini. He's delineated people into superior and inferior populations, and he's calling for the repression of those he deems inferior.

But we can also call Trump a "terrorist" for the way he wields fear as a cudgel, forcing everyone to respond and freak-out and change how they live and what they think of the world around them. Frankly, we should be more frightened of Donald Trump than any ISIS fighter creeping into the nation. Trump is here. And, as he'll tell you, he's armed and dangerous.

Update: Last night, Trump said he would "absolutely implement" a database registry for Muslims living in the United States. Asked if people would be "forced to register," he said, "They have to be." He is a clear and present danger.

[seemslikeadream]

Trump says he saw thousands of people in New Jersey cheering when the towers came down

[Iamwhomiam]

"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down," the Republican presidential candidate said at a Nov. 21 rally in Birmingham, Ala. "And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering."

[slimmouse]

You truly know that your civilisation is in trouble when you look at the current list of Candidates for the most powerful person on earth, which roughly translates to the most powerfully influential/influenced idiot in the shop.

As you will watch unfold in front of your very own eyes.

[Luther Blissett]

Okay, the events of the weekend are bringing me out of my "above it" stance on electoral politics. I remain a "benefit-of-the-doubter" as far as the goodness of the average human American is deep down inside but if we have endorsed mob violence against an African American activist and the injection of far-right hate speech into the discourse, something more drastic has to be done.

No longer will I joke how "cool" it would be for the RNC to decline his popular endorsement and for there to be a rebellion amongst conservatives against the GOP. I don't want Trump's reality to be used to "prove a point" anymore.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

Calls to mind Carlin's bit, "It's not the politicians, it's the PEOPLE that suck.." (paraphrase).

Seems we're fucked both ways in this current zeitgeist..


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-tur ... 00850.html

Trump Turns to Race-Baiting and 9/11 Fantasies

It’s at the point in Donald Trump’s campaign for president when it’s plausible to ask whether the billionaire real estate mogul is looking for a face-saving way out of a race he never expected to win, but can’t find one. How else to explain his increasingly erratic behavior over the past two weeks, culminating in this weekend’s extravaganza of race baiting, 9/11 fabrication, promise breaking and calls to restore torture as administration policy?

It was less than two weeks ago that Trump traveled to Iowa and delivered an unhinged rant comparing his chief rival to a “child molester” and calling Iowa voters “stupid.” Afterward, his poll numbers went up. In Iowa.
Running for the presidential nomination in a party that claims to object to “big government,” he’s been pitching the idea of a national “deportation force” – a sort of federal police force that would have thousands of agents roaming the country in search of undocumented immigrants to summarily deport. He continued to lead the Republican field.

It’s almost as though Trump is searching for something he can say that is outrageous and offensive enough to cause people to desert his cause. Last week, for instance, he signaled that he was open to depriving Muslim Americans of their civil rights based solely on their religion. His rallies were still packed.

So maybe, coming in to this weekend, he decided it was time to dial the outrage meter up a few more ticks.
At a rally in Birmingham on Saturday, Trump was interrupted by an African American man associated with the Black Lives Matter protest movement. The protester, identified as Mercutio Southall, was assaulted by a number of people in the overwhelmingly white crowd who knocked him to the ground, punched, kicked and attempted to choke him. In interviews after the incident, Southall said his assailants also yelled racist slurs.
“Get him the hell out of here,” Trump thundered from the stage as security moved in to escort Southall from the building.

In an interview on Fox News the next morning, Trump was unapologetic about the violent reaction of his supporters to Southall, even appearing to condone it. “Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” he said.

Trump followed up on Sunday afternoon by retweeting wildly false information about homicide rates in the U.S. in a graphic illustrated with a picture of a gun wielding black man in military fatigue pants with a bandanna covering his face.

Citing the non-existent “Crime Statistics Bureau” of San Francisco, the graphic purports to provide 2015 crime statistics – data that not even the FBI has available yet – and claims that blacks are responsible for the vast majority of murders in the U.S., whether the victims are black or white.
While 2015 data hasn’t been compiled yet, data from previous years shows that while blacks are consistently responsible for the majority of murders in which the victim is black, it is whites who murder the vast majority of whites.
But African Americans weren’t the only targets of Trump’s wild accusations over the weekend. At the same rally where Southall was beaten, the billionaire former reality television star insisted that as the World Trade Center collapsed following the 9/11 attacks, killing thousands, Muslims across the river in Jersey City were dancing for joy.

“I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down,” he said. “And I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.”

Considering there is absolutely no contemporaneous evidence for this happening, and that law enforcement officials in New Jersey flat out say it never happened, a candidate possessed of even a tiny bit of self-doubt might have rethought his position. Not Trump.

On Sunday, challenged by ABC’s George Stephanopolous, Trump insisted, "It did happen. I saw it," said Trump. "It was on television. I saw it.”
“There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down,” he said. “I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down, as those buildings came down. And that tells you something.”

Trump also used his appearance to break a promise he made to the Republican Party that he would not seek to run as a third party candidate. In September, Trump signed a loyalty pledge the read in part, “I will endorse the 2016 Republican presidential nominee regardless of who it is. I further pledge that I will not seek to run as an independent or write-in candidate nor will I seek or accept the nomination for president of any other party.”

The language in the pledge seems definitive, but on Sunday, Trump made it clear that he doesn’t consider it binding. “I will see what happens,” he told Stephanopoulos. “I have to be treated fairly.”

Finally, on Sunday, Trump called for the reinstitution of waterboarding as a means of interrogating people believed to be affiliated with the terror group ISIS. Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that is widely considered torture. The U.S. government brought war crimes against Japanese officers who used the practice on American soldiers during World War II.

The Obama administration banned the use of the technique, which intelligence officials had used on suspected members of Al Qaeda in the years following 9/11.

“I would bring it back, yes. I would bring it back,” Trump said Sunday. “I think waterboarding is peanuts compared to what they’d do to us.”
It’s too soon to say what effect his most recent outbursts will have on his poll numbers, but considering that he has paid virtually no price for earlier outrages, it seems unlikely that Trump’s performance over the weekend will hurt him with his backers.

And as the assault on Mercutio Southall in Birmingham showed, those backers are angry and, in some cases, willing to resort to violence. Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric may be creating a monster that, in the end, he won’t be able to control.

[General Patton]

The media yet again took the bait and "corrected" him on black crime statistics. They're getting outplayed on every angle, though it's pretty trivial to do when your enemy can only react.

[AlicetheKurious]

It’s too soon to say what effect his most recent outbursts will have on his poll numbers, but considering that he has paid virtually no price for earlier outrages, it seems unlikely that Trump’s performance over the weekend will hurt him with his backers.

And as the assault on Mercutio Southall in Birmingham showed, those backers are angry and, in some cases, willing to resort to violence. Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric may be creating a monster that, in the end, he won’t be able to control.

Is the US being prepped for some sort of big explosion, like a civil war? It could be.

[seemslikeadream]

a civil war that some Americans think never ended

[SonicG]

It’s too soon to say what effect his most recent outbursts will have on his poll numbers, but considering that he has paid virtually no price for earlier outrages, it seems unlikely that Trump’s performance over the weekend will hurt him with his backers.

And as the assault on Mercutio Southall in Birmingham showed, those backers are angry and, in some cases, willing to resort to violence. Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric may be creating a monster that, in the end, he won’t be able to control.

Is the US being prepped for some sort of big explosion, like a civil war? It could be.

This seems to get bandied about a bit here recently but given the configuration of the state, military and police forces these days, I find it patently impossible. I mean, southern states don't have any resources of their own. The war in the US is a low-intensity racially charged war against the poor, the proles and the lumpen proles...

[General Patton]

It’s too soon to say what effect his most recent outbursts will have on his poll numbers, but considering that he has paid virtually no price for earlier outrages, it seems unlikely that Trump’s performance over the weekend will hurt him with his backers.

And as the assault on Mercutio Southall in Birmingham showed, those backers are angry and, in some cases, willing to resort to violence. Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric may be creating a monster that, in the end, he won’t be able to control.

Is the US being prepped for some sort of big explosion, like a civil war? It could be.

This seems to get bandied about a bit here recently but given the configuration of the state, military and police forces these days, I find it patently impossible. I mean, southern states don't have any resources of their own. The war in the US is a low-intensity racially charged war against the poor, the proles and the lumpen proles...

What is the political alignment of nearly everyone in those forces outside of the feds?

[SonicG]

It’s too soon to say what effect his most recent outbursts will have on his poll numbers, but considering that he has paid virtually no price for earlier outrages, it seems unlikely that Trump’s performance over the weekend will hurt him with his backers.

And as the assault on Mercutio Southall in Birmingham showed, those backers are angry and, in some cases, willing to resort to violence. Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric may be creating a monster that, in the end, he won’t be able to control.

Is the US being prepped for some sort of big explosion, like a civil war? It could be.

This seems to get bandied about a bit here recently but given the configuration of the state, military and police forces these days, I find it patently impossible. I mean, southern states don't have any resources of their own. The war in the US is a low-intensity racially charged war against the poor, the proles and the lumpen proles...

What is the political alignment of nearly everyone in those forces outside of the feds?

Sorry, I don't understand your question. "forces outside of the feds" meaning minorities and proles/lumpen? As if there could be some civil war between "conservatives" and "liberals" or democrats and republicans??