(The following was originally written as a reply to comment by MNPundit on Booman’s recent post Trump is Trying to Corrupt the United Nations. It grew, so here it is as a standalone.)
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MNPundit wrote:
Re: Trump is Trying to Corrupt the United NationsIt’s a political win for everyone. World gets to stand up to the US/Trump which is popular at home. Trump gets to stick his tongue at the UN which plays well with his base. Palestinians are fucked, actual policy is fucked.
Precisely. Thank you.
We must all understand that Trump is playing hardball here. He wants to run things. Simple as that. Will his tactics continue to work? We shall see. I believe that he will ratchet up his threats in the hope that whomever is being threatened will back down. If they don’t? Then…if doing so is at all survivable…he will carry out those threats. This goes for Congress, the U.N., and any other situations where he is being opposed. That’s his M.O., and he has risen from being a local real estate salesman to being President of the United States of Omertica by consistently using that approach.
Read on.
Notice that he is not “threatening” China or Russia. Not in public, anyway. It’s the classic gangland script…three mob families divvying up the neighborhoods of a given area…in this case, the whole world. “Diplomacy” in the U.N. is now basically about keeping a balance of power among those three families. The most powerful family worldwide is the U.S. It controls almost all of North and South America, Japan, South Korea, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and large parts of the Middle East. It also has troops…clandestine and not so clandestine…all over Africa and in the area that the wonderful author Gary Shteyngart so accurately labelled “Absurdistan.” Neither Russia, China…or even an alliance between those two gangs…can really challenge the U.S. empire right now. They can take little potshots, push at some boundaries…witness Crimea, the whole Ukraine boondoggle/stalemate and China woofing about who owns the Asian seas…and they make occasional threatening gestures (mostly meant to keep their own people in line and enthusiastic), but that’s about it.
This has basically been the case since the end of the Vietnam war. Russia, China and the U.S. have all had their ups and downs since then, but the same balance of power has pretty much remained.
Until Trump.
Trump wants it all. He wants to be the Boss of All Bosses, and every move he makes…whether it’s domestic or international…is based on that one idea. Any opposition to that idea is met with lots of words and the threat of action. So far…including Congress…the only truly strong opposition that he has received is from North Korea. That’s still in the posturing phase, mainly because North Korea is a relatively small sub-gang in the Chinese mob. If the Chinese get to thinking that Kim Jong-un is a seriously annoying burr under their saddle…as was Crazy Joey Gallo to the Profaci/Colombo mob in the NYC area…then a contract of some sort will go out on him and his whole little gang. It’s probably out already; they’re just trying to figure out how to rid of him without nuclear war. Nukes are bad for business, don’tcha know. Good for threat, but very bad for business.
Now, back to Trump. The office of the presidency in the U.S. is almost unassailable in a legal sense. I mean…let’s get real, here. The politics of impeachment…real, successful impeachment…are simply too complex. That would be “bad for business” too. Is Trump’s lust for power so great that he begins to resemble Joey Gallo too? Most of the important members of both major gangs in the U.S…the Ratublicans and the DemocRats…see him as a threat to their own interests. So apparently does the Deep State…a third gang that keeps a very low profile but carries a lot of power. If they can force Trump to start issuing pardons…to others and to himself…then public opinion will finally turn so against him that he will essentially be powerless. But…so far…that war is still in posturing mode as well. We shall see. It’s been a year…
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…Trump is still president and he is still dominating the news cycle. So it goes. The “Write anything you want about me but be sure to spell my name right” approach has worked very well for him.
As he might say in an unguarded Twitter moment:
Kvetch on, suckers. I’m still here. Whatchoo gonna do about it!!!???
It’s been about a year now. Two years if you include the failure of the PermaGov forces to stop Trump’s nomination. So far?
All talk and very little walk from the neocentrist opposition.
We shall see…
Won’t we.
Later…
AG
I still expect another “lone gunman” ala Oswald if Trump p.o.’s the Deep State too much. As I said before it’s win-win-win. A loose cannon gets removed. Republicans can cry crocodile tears over their fallen hero climaxed by a sobbing Pence vowing to take up the torch and “continue the great work”. Democrats are castigated for their obstinate resistance to the people’s choice and are blamed for inciting the lone gunman. That’s more than three wins, isn’t it. Add another win if the
patsylone gunman is a Muslim or has North Korean ties.It just writes itself doesn’t it? Of course, the lone gunman must be killed or the trial will show all the holes. Maybe shot by security, maybe shot while in custody. Mustn’t make it too much like JFK.
Maybe he “suicides” like the Vegas gunman. or was he shot by the police? Did they ever get their story straight?
We shall see, Voice. In the virtual reality world that has been created by the digital revolution? Less real blood spilled; more false news.
Less messy, don’tcha know.
But in extremis?
Whatever works…as always.
Watch.
AG
Thought of an up to date twist after posting.
“Lone gunman” is actually a government employee. He is told that he is testing new detection apparatus and is fitted with a supposedly fake strap on bomb. Supposedly he will be be placed next to POTUS to test the detection apparatus. Remote handler explodes the bomb and afterward planted evidence shows he was an ISIS/AlQueda/Russia/whoever mole. This gives an excuse for an internal witch hunt with removal of enemies.
Or have I been reading too much David Baldacci?
Too much Baldacci.
Unlike the fake Resistance (TM), they have discovered that Trump is malleable and they’re not have any great difficulty getting him to do it what they want. The ‘Brer Rabbit’ ploy. MIC getting more than they asked for. Corporate and wealthy getting bigger and wider tax breaks than they dreamed was possible. Heaven for clandestine operations. What none of them ever accepted is that any handcuffs or restraints on them were for the benefit of all, including them.
Unbridled whatever at some point takes them down. Just as it has done in the past. They are all versions of Madoff and/or Weinstein.
You write:
Yes!!!
Precisely!!!
Thank you, Marie.
Patience…their petards await the hangings.
Any day now.
Aaaaaany day…
AG
Didn’t mean to imply that they fall quickly. Or that once it begins, a domino effect emerges. Too many in the opposition interfere with the natural domino effect and later are inclined to restore the reputations of many that ended up in the trash heap where they belonged.
As to time — minimum three years but six to ten is more usual. (And many last for decades but that’s usually combined with interim restoration(s).)
The most effective opposition strategy: Patience AND get out of the way until they’ve fallen and then pummel them as hard and as long as required to make sure they can’t never get up again.
You write:
Political martial arts for the masses!!!
My own preferred approach to any combat, as well.
Thank you.
AG
This gives me new thoughts on Trump’s recent belligerence towards China re North Korea. My ears perked up when he threatened commercial sanctions. I don’t think he will go through with it but rather I am thinking that it’s a threat intended to generate commercial concessions. “Follow the money”.
Off topic, I’m sickened by the complete removal of fracking regulations as “tying the hands of the oil industry.” Glad I don’t live in or near an oil state.
I’d wish you a Happy New Year, but I gravely doubt it will be happy. I’ll drink a toast on New year’s Eve to my friends here and caucus99precent (and confusion to my enemies, but they are already confused) with some fine Michigan wine. Hoping you will do the same with some of California’s finest.
○ Natural Gas Boom: What Will It Mean for Plastics Processors? (Oct. 2013)
○ $180bn investment in plastic factories feeds global packaging binge
Oops, sorry … progressives are still sobbing and sulking about Hillary, the Resistance and #Russiagate!
And of course, on the Western front in the East, fracking is being fast-tracked as started in Oct. 2013, Maidan Revolt, coup d’état and Biden’s son in the Ukraine. Oligarchy anyone? Don’t want our new NATO member not being dependent on Russian gas!
Brexit and UK law on fracking easier being outside the EU
○ Shale gas and EU energy security
And please hoist a French vintage to us over here!
You frequently describe your diaries as having grown from a front page comment.
In reality, your migration to the diaries more often seems motivated by your desire to retreat from multiple community members who slap down your knee-jerk baloney on the front page and confront you with facts and questions you want to avoid.
So, you scurry off to the diaries, where you’re often joined by two or three others who share your fantasies of self-righteousness. The rest of the community avoid your diaries like the plague. It’s quite the courageous pattern of behavior from Mr. Tough Guy Truth Teller.
You’re a Ron Paul evangelist. That puts you right in the ideological wheelhouse of Trump, McConnell and Ryan. Ron Paul advocated for massive tax cuts much like the ones just passed by Congress. It’s striking that you have not written in opposition to the hateful, damaging tax bill that Trump signed into law. Occam’s Razor: you like the tax cuts.
If you had any balls or honor you would take on Trump for his war escalations, the one policy area where Trump has taken leave from Paul’s ideology, and an issue you claim as a preoccupation in your voluminous attacks on Democrats. But you haven’t and don’t because you’re a bitter, cowardly man who’s unwilling to come clean about the policies and politicians you like, perhaps even to yourself.
It’s most often best to ignore your belligerent claptrap. But sometimes your admiration for Trump is just so painfully obvious that it feels necessary to take on your most outrageous claims and evasions.
There is really no more accurate response to your two-dimensional takes on my positions that I can muster.
There are more of you than there are of me…here on this site and in the body politic in general…but I do keep trying.
Your positions will eventually bring this country to its knees.
Payback’s a bitch. ain’t it.
Enjoy…
AG
You’ve got nothing.
No, you have nothing. Nothing but allegiance to the corrupt.
Glad to see you come around to defend the Ron Paul agenda. Knew you had it in you!
No, seriously, I knew you had it in you.
You are fucking nuts. I used to respect you. Now I know that you are just a party hack spouting crap. Go play with Marduk. I suppose you agree with him when he said “Fuck the White working man.” I’d give you a link but the comment is hidden. You know, like 1984.
What’s your response to the fact that Congressional Democrats have provided literally zero votes for any of the major pieces of legislation that Trump, McConnell and Ryan have tried to move this year? Does that fact square with your claim that the Democratic Party and its elected leaders are corrupt?
They are “corrupt” in terms of their neocentrism. The whole supposed DemRat/RatPub mutual opposition is simply a jive shadow fight. They are really allied in terms of who controls both sides of this particular little drama…their mutual corporate owners. Allied in opposition to the new gang in town.
The Trumpists.
AG
It’s revealing that you believe Trump is just an ordinary President, and that this is just an ordinary Congress. Then again, I’m reminded that a Ron Paul evangelist would think nothing of the nauseatingly explicit sexism and racism and plutocratic raiding of the Treasury we’re now battered by every day.
These nasty policies and rhetorical barrages are all right up your alley. You’ve wanted the destruction of the administrative state for years. One caveat: you used to complain bitterly about the military escalations and the deafening beating on the drums of war, but all of a sudden you aren’t offering your opposition to these things at all. Weird, huh?
Keep on sticking it to the libs and the Others, man. It’s your time.
You write:
Try to imagine another, alternate reality, centerfield. One where Donald Trump…the same person in every way, with the same belief system and the same aims…had run (and won) against a candidate who frightened the neocentrists even more than does he. Say a younger, more “firebrand” version of Bernie Saunders. A truly radical leftist who by some series of circumstances and establishment mistakes had risen to power in the Democratic Party. This is almost unimaginable, I grant you, but then so was Trump’s rise to power before he actually managed to do it.
Do you really think that the media…the creator of all images in this system, the controller of billions of of minds…would be painting the same picture of Trump as they are doing now and have consistently doing since the beginnings of his primary campaign?? Do you really think that the bipartisan, neocentrist political system would be fighting Trump tooth and nail the way they are now? I don’t. They would be demonizing his opponent. Caught in a Scylla/Charybdis choice, they would have…just as they did with HRC…chosen the “lesser of two evils,” and Trump would be being ballyhooed as the second coming of Ronald Reagan or some other rancid bullshit.
You also write:
No, I want a thorough reconstruction of the the administrative state, not its destruction.
And:
My initial interest in Ron Paul was entirely due to his repeated statements that if elected he would immediately bring the U.S. troops home. All of them. And my opposition to both Trump and HRC is primarily due to the plain fact that both of them mean to maintain a militarily-enforced, economic imperialist world where the U.S. is the Boss of all Bosses. Whomever most effectively supports an end to the Permanent War State in which we live immediately gets my own private attention, because I think that this is the basic mistake that has steadily driven the U.S. down on all levels after WW II.
Take all of the manpower and all of the multi-trillions of dollars that have been wasted in all of the wars that we have fomented and fought…including the clandestine wars and those that used puppet/client armies…since WW II and apply them to the society and infrastructure of the United States? Things would be very different here.
Self-defense? Great. Create an effective military that is entirely defensive, and let the rest of the world do so as well. Concentrate on here. Fortress America, if need be.
I can hear the responses now:
Ron Paul once stated that since true “capitalism’ has never really been tried on any large scale…his version of it, the so-called “Libertarian” version…then no one knows if it would work or not. I don’t know if it would work either, for the same reason. I do know that what we are doing now is not working, and on the plain evidence of Trump’s accession to the presidency it is working worse. And I also don’t know if a non-imperialist foreign policy would work, because that has also not been tried. We will probably never find out if either approach wold work, because the oligarchy simply will not permit it to happen. Instead, we will continue to slowly circle the drain until the whole system either implodes or is flushed down the gaping maw of history.
Why do i spnd so much time trying to talk sense to you, centerfield? Because you represent a well-meaning but totally misguided segment of this culture. I have little hope for your enlightenment personally…although hope does spring eternal, at least in my own life…but maybe someone else will read these colloquies and start to think about things a little differently. One mind at a time, don’tcha know.
Meanwhile…enjoy playing your centerfield position, centerfielddj. One day you are going to wake up and find that your new position is “left out.” We may all join you there, and sooner than we think.
Later…
AG
I’m pretty supportive of your position on our military imperialism. I want to see that shit come down pronto. But I’m also aware that we haven’t fully won that argument with the American people, as witnessed by the utter failure of the Johnson and Stein campaigns to do anything but help give Trump his thin electoral margins and create a small but quite consequential and enduring split on the left.
I’m also aware that you fail to offer a single specific critique of Trump’s military escalations while offering this broad critique of military imperialism. That’s a problem for you here, because your specific critiques of all Democrats on foreign and military policy have been voluminous. It leads to the unavoidable conclusion that your critiques are offered in bad faith. Tossing off an “I’m opposed to Trump” and then returning to thousands of paragraphs of critiques of Democratic Party leaders and institutions fails to cover you.
You fail to offer any real Trump critique while admitting that you were opposed to Clinton’s campaign, which is an extreme indictment of your judgment. Anyone claiming to be a leftist/progressive who was unwilling to see how inferior any imaginable Trump Administration would be to any imaginable Clinton Administration is not a person who is worthy of trust.
I don’t need to get deeply into your extremist libertarian position on economic issues; you know better than to think you can successfully shop that stuff over here. I’ll just say that it’s incredibly hypocritical for an enthusiastic Sanders supporter to want to bring on an even more unfettered capitalism from the brand we’re suffering from now. It’s almost as if your support of Sanders is insincere outside of its usefulness as a way to throw stones at Clinton and other Democrats. Ron Paul stands in extreme opposition to the vast majority of Bernie’s economic policy positions.
Your position on that issue must have you enjoying the Trump Administration’s enabling of the most avaricious capitalist forces. For two of dozens of examples, turning the CPFB and NLRB away from consumer and worker protection are very Ron Paul moves.
Finally, your refusal to defend healthy Federal voting and civil rights laws and desire to slash or eliminate our fraying social welfare programs make you worthy of contempt from any self-respecting progressive.
You write:
I am sure that you have noticed that the last thing this leftiness blog needs is any more real comment on the total wrongitude of the trump administration. It would like be preaching to the
acquired…err, ahhh, I mean choir.You also write:
If the current definition of a “leftist/progressive”…at least on this site…means endorsing Scylla rather than endorsing Charybdis, then ai am certainly not a “leftist/progressive.” If however that definition more closely resembles my own leftist/progressive roots…along the lines of what is published daily in Counterpunch…then this site is most definitely no longer any kind of leftist/progressive blog. The betrayals of Clinton I, Obama and Clinton II should have awakened any “leftist/progressive” from the ’90s and before to what is really up now.
Neocentrism.
Neocons and neolibs together, all dressed up in brand new, politically unisexual jump suits.
I do not care what form any sincerely attempted solution takes to this economic, social and political morass in which we are rapidly sinking, centerfield. Drain the swamp, repopulate it with new creatures or move completely away to higher ground. I simply refuse to make peace with the creatures now sucking the life out of this country no matter what convenient label they apply to themselves.
You?
Not so much.
And finally…I am “worthy of contempt from any self-respecting progressive???”
As I have said here innumerable times…if about 98% of the current nationally elected DemRat politicians are on the payroll of the TRULY inhuman corporate system now in effect…the real “dangerous alIens” in spite of the media-promoted recent @THE ALIENS ARE COMING!!! clickbait foofaraw…then your “self-respect” as a pro-DemRat voter is not worthy of my respect.
So it goes.
And…once again (sigh…) WTFU!!!
AG
Wow, are you insincere. Pointing out directly that Ron Paul supports almost all of Trump’s positions fails to shake you out of your evasiveness. Look at the way Rand Paul has voted for almost everything that Trump has fought for. Has Rand sanctimoniously taken to the Senate floor for hours to decry Trump’s use of drones and his escalations in Afghanistan and Syria and Africa and elsewhere? Fuck no he hasn’t. You think he’s going to fight, I mean really and effectively fight, to get the Senate to cut Defense spending? Fuck no he won’t.
Rand Paul just voted to blow a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget. He’s as insincere as you. He’ll join you in coming after blacks and browns and gays and poors, though.
Keep on enabling Trump. That’s what you are doing. In doing so, you are supporting the most monstrous corporatism while pretending you are opposed. Your privileged position allows you the luxury to do so. I don’t care if you dispute the observation that you are privileged. Your blindness to the fact that your old white man status offers you privilege under this Administration is part of your ignorance, and part of our problem.
And THIS bullshit:
“I do not care what form any sincerely attempted solution takes to this economic, social and political morass in which we are rapidly sinking…”.
You’re literally careless on a subject of great importance. Trump is sincerely attempting to implement his preferred solution. You offer no opposition to his rampant sexist, racist plutocracy. “Oh, well, other people are doing it for me!” is an utterly pathetic defense. Frankly, I don’t believe you oppose Trump’s sexist, racist plutocracy.
And…equally frankly…i do not care what believe. Not about me nor anyone else. I only answer you…and your little cohorts..because you are a perfect template for all of the misguided “progessives” (leftiness neocentrists, actually) out there. i am fascinated by your dogged insistence that you…and the DNC dancers like HRC, Schumer, Pelosi et al…have the fix to everything that has gone wrong through the previous three neocentrist administrations.
Bipartisan administrations in a bipartisan congress. The various electoral pendulums always swing in an arc between RatPublican neocentrists and DemocRatic ones, but never…except for Trump…do they start to wildly vary in either direction. Trump’s win was a symptom. Of what? Of the center not holding very well. So was (or maybe is?) Bernie Sanders’s success. We shall see in 2018.
The media mechanics and their controllers/engineers are working feverishly to calm down the electoral pendulum, but they cannot et it done without admitting that the whole machine needs drastic repair. In this it is very much like the NYC highways and public transportation system. People are becoming more and more aware that they are broken, but no one knows how to fix them without shutting them down completely, and doing that would result in absolute chaos.
I think that the chaos in both cases will eventually come anyway, but I do not know when that will be.
Meanwhile…i try to enjoy every day as if it will be my last.
Happy Holidays, Centristfielder. May your days be merry and bright, and may all your DemocRats by politically correct.
AG
The radical political reform and policies that Sanders seeks are nearly polar opposite of the radical political reform and policies that Paul seeks.
Your primary goal is not to push the Democratic Party to the left as I and Sanders wish to do and to help the Party win elections so its leaders can gain the power to implement more progressive policies. Your primary goal is to destroy liberal, pluralistic, democratically controlled governance as Ron Paul wishes to do, and you appear willing to engage in unlimited amounts of evasive mendacity in your desire to accomplish that goal.
You can’t even find it within you to support real voting rights. Your long-held support for voter ID laws gives much of your racist game away.
It’s funny that you come hide in the diaries to tell lies about me, you filthy piece of shit.
But of course — it’s the only goal left for one that is total ambition personified after achieving POTUS. (btw, a few others reached for that as well.)
minor quibble:
However one labels it — PermaGov, deep state, VIPs behind the curtain — it/they (the dominate faction) not only made no move to stop Trump’s nomination but enabled it. Because such a total joke made Clinton a general election shoo-in. It/they went to work after he bested the shoo-in. Of course, with the minority now holding actual power, the majority is in a much weakened position of power. And they’ve been doing a crap job if the objective is to irrevocably damage Trump. So, they scurry around like the rats they are nabbing whatever chunk of cheese that falls their way.
Do they really want to stop him?
For what it’s worth, WGN reported the tax bill passed “with bipartisan support”.
Maybe on TV? Wouldn’t know. But on WGN’s website, it reports that the bill passed along party lines with no Democrats voting for it.
It probably was a “slip of the tongue”. When called on it they will say “Oh. He misspoke.” You know ALL the TV stations are in the bag for the tax cuts. A few nights ago I say CBS (IIRC) giving three examples of “typical people” all getting tax cuts. “Even in California” then proceeded to cite a married couple making $300,000. The East Coast couple were a pair of doctors making( a chiropractor and a dentist) making $150,000 and a single mother with five kids who comes out ahead because of refundable kid credits. Real typical people.
The pity is that I had no reason to doubt that any Democrats voted for this bill. My own Congressman, Raja Krishnamurti, has been bombarding me with e-mails touting the wonders of bipartisanship. About what I’d expect from a protege of Dick Durbin.
As Marduk said right here in a thread in which Booman was wondering how to con the hicks into voting (D), “Fuck the white working man.” That’s the Democrats new motto. I hope it’s their epitaph.