Rayvin
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Posts
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Days Won
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Everything posted by Rayvin
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As I've said, I was taking the piss. Out of the people who think Islam in itself is the sole reason for terrorism. You all know fine well that isn't my view. Lemme ask you guys actually. What do you think the MAIN reason Trump was elected, and that Brexit was voted for, is? One concept only.
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Even on the day he was elected he had a 60% disapproval polling. This whole election was nothing to do with people being 'pro-Trump' and everything to do with people being anti-corporate, anti-establishment, and desperate for change. If Sanders had beaten Clinton, we wouldn't be here.
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I was being tongue in cheek to expose some of the arguments that are raised about terrorism generally. I can't remember which side of that you were on actually, so if it's as you say then fair enough. Be amazed if you want, but I'm reasonably happy that things have developed as I expected them to over the past few months, and am therefore not concerned about some manner of dystopian future about to be realised. I think he'll bumble along for a year, lose the House in 2018, and then be paralysed until he's booted out in 4 years time to be replaced by an incoming leftwing administration that has finally realised that appealing to corporate greed isn't the way to go, and that this whole charade came about because they insisted on doing just that. The alternative is that Trump's policies stimulate growth and jobs, and the left finds it much harder to establish common ground with the voters. This could lead to the more worrying outcome.
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Hang on though, we've established on here that nothing apart from Islamism forms the recruitment drive for ISIS. Moreover, if they can't actually get into the US in the first place, how does this endanger his country?
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Attack on who? By who? Who is this supposed to aggravate?
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At the moment though, he's blocking specific countries, right? So while yes, this is really about banning muslims, it's actually not specifically doing that yet. It's banning foreign nationals from certain countries. Also, surely this is the only adequate response to 'Islamic terrorism' if you believe that it comes about purely from being Muslim. I don't believe that, but plenty around seem to do so.
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I'm saying they could. That the opportunity is there. It hinges on whether or not Trump is actually successful on the economic front. Also, on Gloom being the voice of reason - since when has the objective voice of reason been about moving to a state of absolute panic
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I don't disagree there, but he's too principled for that level of pragmatism. I think we have to accept that Brexit has turned us into a one party state.
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Yeah but realistically he has absolutely no means of doing that. I expect it could amount to little more than surrendering the task to Russia. That said, if he allies with Putin they'd probably end that catastrophically... so maybe you're right.
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I think it'll be telling actually, how many people Trump has killed by the end of his presidency. Based on his isolationist tendencies, it's quite possible that it could be significantly fewer than Obama. Now, even with his stance on immigration, surely that would make him objectively a less destructive leader? Assuming you agree that the taking of lives is worse than preventing someone access to your country? There's potentially an argument that turning down refugees effectively 'kills' them, but all countries in the world are guilty of this to some degree, not least of which the UK. This is a good article on Trump reinvigorating the culture war, which I think has parallels with the UK post-Brexit. After Brexit, this was actually pretty obvious IMO. The only question was whether it was UK specific or Western. I thought Trump was a stronger contender for the presidency than many others specifically because of this culture war. The left (actually the centre, IMO) hasn't woken up to this yet: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/29/donald-trump-left-faces-new-cultural-warrior-in-battle-it-thought-won
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But I suppose, and this is to HF, that Trump is at least an acceptable hate figure that will allow these policies to be exposed as he takes them to extremes. This means that we may, as I said, get a left wing push back that actually fucking sorts some of these problems out. We needed a Trump to come along because we were willfully blind when this sort of shit was being carried out by people like Obama. The MSM simply not giving a shit under his watch, presumably.
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At the risk of needing to 'get a room' with HF again, that's a fucking good post I would also add that the wall and pipeline will support job creation and investment in the economy, thus offering a potential growth outlet. Also, I think I read that fewer Mexicans than ever are even going into the US illegally. On that basis, it's an empty gesture anyway (beyond investment in the regions the wall will cover).
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That's about par for the course for her, mind. She's out of her depth really.
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Why couldn't we be at the point of the revolution now? It needed something radical to happen and tbf, Trump is ticking a lot of the boxes I would look for as the initiation of actual change.
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How do you figure on that last part? I can actually see the left wing rationale for supporting Brexit. Follows along the lines of the EU being a vehicle for Neoliberalism, globalisation and corporate ideals. On the other hand, the EU does a lot of good from a socialist viewpoint as well, with respect of workers rights and collective bargaining power. This is why I think Corbyn is lukewarm on it.
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What about Cenk's attempts to takeover the Democratic party? If that works it could be a game changer.
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You don't think the left will be resurgent after this? I know you like to back the corporatists to control everything in the long run, but they've clearly not controlled Brexit - you said many times that they would somehow and yet, here we are, about to hard Brexit. Hillary lost to Trump ffs. They got owned in 2016 and I don't think by their own design. That means there are weaknesses. I don't think it's divorced from reality to expect that, if Trump is an utterly shit president, and cracks down on various freedoms, he'll be subject to an active left wing push back. The only thing I can see allowing him to escape this, is if his policies actually do create jobs. If they do, the left is in trouble.
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There's plenty of things he's doing that we need to object to - the immigration policy (which I still can't believe has been implemented as it was) and his ludicrous attempts to silence discussion on climate change. Other than those two, as far as I can remember, he hasn't done anything particularly noteworthy. I think what we're seeing at the moment is as bad as it'll get. It's the Tory modus operandi - do all the bad stuff straight off the bat, and then people will think more kindly of you when you do better stuff towards the end of the period. This will be a fantastic opportunity in the long run, assuming we survive it. Trump is going to be so right wing, that millions of formerly stupid people will be prepared to vote left. And the left can go in, tear down his wall, open up the borders, enshrine something or other into the constitution so that 'this can never happen again' and hopefully, just maybe, they'll fix the fucking system. Trump might be the enemy we need to finally kill the establishment.
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The immigration policy is certainly incredible but I'm struggling to feel much sympathy for the media. It's not like they've been shut down, they're reporting on him negatively every chance they get. With good reason I might add. When they're no longer able to do that, I'll worry about it. But can you honestly, in your wildest dreams, consider that Trump would get away with shutting down the free press? He has the lowest approval ratings of any president ever, no chance he'd get away with it. If the White House wants to peddle absolute fallacies they're going to get called out on it. Every time they do it. And not just by the media, by literally everyone. I really don't think this is the world ending scenario that many seem to think. They sensationalised Bannon's quote, IMO. If there's no need to sensationalise, why do it? The pulling of funding for international groups who support abortions was another one. Every republican president that has gone before him has done that. The democrats come in and put it in, the republicans take it out. And yet we're told that this is Trump attacking women as if its an unprecedented move. Why? To sensationalise.
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What would McCarthy cost then? £20m? Is he worth £20m? Not sure it'd necessarily be an Ashley move to fail to pay £20m for a good but unspectacular midfielder. You may have a point on the Townsend front though.
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He seems to be suggesting that the media isn't listening to what the administration is saying and is just printing anything they can to discredit it. He's 100% right about the Guardian on that front but I suppose if the media are 'the opposition party' which actually makes sense given how invisible the democrats are presently, that's what you'd expect them to do. Kind of the same with how the media opposed Corbyn in this country, with the Tories needing to do basically nothing. I don't think that's a threat to silence the media. I think that reading of it from the author is over the top. He specifically says 'the media need to shut their mouths and listen for a while'. The Guardian has run with 'the media need to shut their mouths'. His actual quote isn't as sensationalist. It does indicate that if we do go 'full fascist', the media is going to be one of the first things to go, however. That said, I'm extremely concerned by news that all government employees are being prevented from talking about climate change and are having to do so through rogue twitter accounts and so on. For me, it sounds like Trump is running America like a company. You would expect a company to issue an edict banning discussions with the press, or the revealing of certain facts. Threats to the media are one thing, actually trying to control the narrative and discourse through the omission of information should be vehemently resisted irrespective of whether the government or the media are doing it.
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£16m?! Fucking hell.
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Well if Israel's on board with it, it must be a good idea.
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I have to say I'm rather stunned that this policy was just flung into practice with no preparation and apparently no consideration on how it will work. Obviously am also stunned that he's managed to get such a policy into place at all in fairness. We could be in for quite a ride.
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Well this looks like it was one to miss. These things happen.
