Trump - The good, the bad and the ugly

[JMTelevideos]

Your response is a "Non-sequitur", but It might be a virtuous response.

[Aristocles]

By talking about him someone has learnt something about wordpad

He is making Microsoft great again!

[JMTelevideos]

Some of the posts in these forum show precisely how the right is persuaded by the media: The left focuses on the "language" of the statements, rather than the statements, and from a traditional point of view that is not an acceptable way to have formal discourse; that is why Donald trump won: he understood that the left uses "dialectical" techniques (e.g. political correctness), but a large fraction of the population is tired of that (they prefer traditional "logic"); in this way, by uttering outrageous, bombastic, exorbitant statements, he effectively communicated his separation from modern/post-modern dialects and the conservative media propelled the dialectical methods of the left as "radical" (communist!!).
That is why, the best way to deal with the right is to deal with the left, and we can start in this forum by advocating focus on statements, not the language of the statements, or anything that is traditionally petty.

[Aristocles]

JMTele. I mistyped thinking this was the lounge, & that this thread slowed to crawl when the "good" became the emphasis.

I imagine you know there is much unpacking needed in your response above. What statements do you wish to focus upon?

[Fooloso4]

JMTelevideos:

That is why, the best way to deal with the right is to deal with the left, and we can start in this forum by advocating focus on statements, not the language of the statements, or anything that is traditionally petty.

The language of a statement is what carries its meaning. Although Trump is linguistically challenged, the wording of political statements is still of critical importance. What we are seeing on almost a daily basis is Trump saying something followed by his spokespeople claiming what he really meant.which really is what they wanted him to mean.

How is political correctness a dialectical technique? Many of those opposed to political correctness are opposed to idea of what is considered politically correct and that their own ideas are therefore politically incorrect and should not be expressed. But it really has more to do with the belief that he shares their opinions and/or will promote their interests. There are many reasons why he won the election, and we should not forget that he lost the popular vote by a significant margin.

[JMTelevideos]

I should explain that when I said "dialectical technique" I meant it in the pragmatic context introduced by Richard Rorty: 1) there is no vocabulary better than others 2) we communicate with others to find the "Irony" in our own vocabulary 3) vocabularies that are cruel to others are avoided. So, a "dialectical technique" is a way to focus on the vocabulary, rather than the statements: inconsistent statements can be "resolved" by distinguishing the vocabularies of the statements! In this way, " vocabularies" of statements are the tools to resolve conflict, rather than statements. The politically correct movement parallels this focus on vocabulary as a way to avoid conflict.

[Dolphin42]

Another one: He has a name that lends itself well to rhymes. When the stock market was going up in anticipation of renewed relaxation of Wall Street regulation and lower taxes, that was the Trump Jump. Now it's suddenly got the jitters after the healthcare reform failure it's the Trump Slump.

I think I'd be hard pressed to think of a better name.

[Scottie]

As I see it the US (both the leadership and many of the people) simply take for granted that the US is better than other nations. We claim that our system is the best in the world and yet I always find myself asking how it is that when we can look at socialist democracies using some iteration of a Scandinavian model who have better outcomes in most areas we measure to determine quality of life and claim that "socialism" doesn't work.

The US still kind of lives in the Cold War era—we still believe that "Russia", whatever that means, needs to take direction from us. That said, enabling meddling in US elections by foreign powers is likely treasonous even though Trumpy believes (so he says) we should relax our position toward Putin's government. The US, however, would waste no time sabre rattling if it were determined that Putin resented being expected to adhere to agreements entered into with the current US administration.

I don't believe that Trumpy has anything in mind but himself. He has stacked his cabinet with people inimical to the aims of the agencies they head for the purpose of dismantling and privatizing.

Trump understands that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. He says outrageous things because people will pay attention to them while Ryan, Pence, and governers like Sam Brownback will do everything possible to make it possible for the powerful to do what they want when they want, damn the torpedoes. He's a pen for a reactionary, regressive congress to pass legislation aimed at law and politics as a real life game of king of the hill. He and his like claim they don't like "government" yet they are obvious examples of corporate people becoming government in order to take advantage of the position of authority of last resort. They are **** dishonest, almost all of them.

Trump is mean spirited, greedy, shameless, self serving, dishonest, and cruel. He has no redeeming qualities. He's a huckster and I wish that people would have understood that.

[Steve3007]

So the Trump administration has now openly intervened militarily in the Syrian war. Does anyone have any strong views as to whether this was a wise or foolish thing to do? Does anybody have any informed opinion as to which of the two main competing narratives about the sarin gas incident is true?

On that second question:

Narrative 1: The Syrian air force dropped bombs containing chemical weapons, as they have done in the past.

Narrative 2: The Syrian air force bombed a cache of chemical weapons that was being stockpiled by their enemies.

No doubt numerous other narratives are also available, but sticking to those two for now, most "western" leaders and commentators appear to have decided that the first one is true. I've read and heard accounts from supposedly knowledgeable people that if you bombed a chemical weapons cache like this from the air the effect would not have been what was observed. Sarin would have been stored as precursor chemicals that would not have been combined in sufficient quantities, by an air strike, to cause the effects that we've seen here. The alleged air strike happened after the first symptoms were observed. There was no evidence on the ground of any chemical weapons storage. etc. In other words, according to these people, narrative 2 is highly unlikely.

Is this convincing? Or is this case another example of the phenomenon of competing narratives that we, the general public, will never resolve into objective truth?

[Felix]

As you suggested, I've heard no credible evidence to support narrative #2. The Syrians suggested it and their main ally the Russians supported the claim, which is to be expected. I can't see Trump bombing the Syrian army though, because he'd probably kill some of their Russian advisors in the process. I think he's just protesting loudly to give folks the impression that he gives a damn, but military action would risk offending his comrade Putin and company.

[Steve3007]

I don't really think that he's particularly concerned about offending Putin. His main aim in most of what he does appears to be to say "I'm better than Obama was". Note that his first reaction to this was to say that it's all Obama's fault because of the whole "red line" thing.

Given that infamous "red line", in similar circumstances, that Obama failed to enforce, this was an opportunity for Trump to show himself to be a man of action that could not be passed up. Now that point has been made by cratering some runways I don't suppose much else will be done.

[Aristocles]

Syria strike: According to the BBC, the Pentagon reported that Russia was informed of the recent USA Syrian strike prior to it commencing. Of course I do not know enough facts to back up either narrative, but narrative 1 does appear more feasible. I do not understand the motive of narrative 1 however, enough to intervene with a military strike at this point.

Strategic strikes in general: my understanding is Trump has already nearly doubled the amount of strategic strikes of the entire active Obama administration. (The Yemen strike where a Seal was killed appears to be among the more notable.) But, yes this appears to be the fulfillment of election promises, namely instructing Obama how Trump is the better supreme CEO of the world. The Syrian strike too appears to be from Trump psychological frustration of not being able to perform such a strike in North Korea, and this being an opportunity to militarily vent.

[Steve3007]

I think I can understand the motive for dropping chemical weapons. They clearly have the ability to instil terror in their potential victims. Instilling terror in people is a very useful tool for persuading them to do what you want them to do. That's why its use, usually referred to as terror-ism when our enemies do it, is so popular. For example, it's why white phosphorus is used by the US military ("Willie Pete" as they affectionately call it). I guess the prospect of being burned alive is seen as a great motivator.

[Fooloso4]

In Trump’s defense: no one knew it would be so complicated.

The United States and Russia prevented Assad from using sarin in 2013 (and Trump has been critical of Obama for the "weakness" he demonstrated in doing this). So, it is not as if Assad's use of sarin is unprecedented. I do not know what the best course of action should be. Diplomacy is always best, but diplomacy alone is not always enough. On the other hand, military intervention without diplomacy could be disastrous. There are just too many players. There is also the question of of the objective - is it to restrain Assad or regime change? And if the overall objective is to bring peace how are we to go about it? Bomb first ask questions later is bad policy. It will be quite easy for Trump to project an image of power, and that if nothing else is what his insatiable need for self-aggrandizement will accomplish, but what will rise from the rubble is a question that cannot be ignored.

[Felix]

Diplomacy is always best, but diplomacy alone is not always enough.

Yes, as Barack Obama discovered. Trump is dramatically increasing military spending while simultaneously reducing oversight over the military and reducing the State Department budget, so it's clear he has little interest in diplomacy.

Bomb first ask questions later is bad policy.

But it looks like that's mostly what we'll be getting from the Trump administration, it goes well with Tweet first and ask questions later.