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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over!
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to El Burdo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: El Burdo
There will be another Trump Nightmare don't you think? You already had one in Reagan, pace his hail, fellow, well met charm. The UK in Thatcher agreed to the installation of Cruise Missiles to buddy up with him. Reagan did seem to have pulled off his walk in the gardens with Gorbachev though even though he probably didn't know what he was doing. Then of course there's Bush Jnr.
During the Reagan era I was neck deep in the tech side of the Cold War. Some of the projects I worked on were run out of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. I was acquainted with the Secretary, but didn't work closely with him.
There was always someone with some stars on their shoulders between me and the SecDef--except there were an admiral and a general I never saw in uniform.
Cap Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, and Jim Casey, the head of the CIA were strongly opposed to Reagan's and Secretary of State George Shultz's negotiations with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. Weinberger and Casey feared that the Soviets would pull the wool over Reagan's eyes.
They knew Reagan and I didn't so I at least entertained their view to begin with. But it turned out that Reagan and Shultz were right in their assessment of the Soviet leaders. Some of the Soviet tech leaders I met in the "confidence building" phase were concerned that Gorbachv and Shevardnadze were giving away the store. Other Soviets were breathing a sigh of relief, hoping that glasnost and perestroika could renovate the ramshackle Soviet house of cards.
I certainly didn't know anyone who anticipated the sudden collapse of the USSR, but Larisa, who was 13 at the time has told me it was no surprise to her, nor to her mother who was an aeronautical engineer. The entire country was riddled with corruption, nepotism and incompetence. Any shock was likely to demolish it.
I admired Reagan for his dealings with the Soviets. I deplored his domestic policies.
His Iran-Contra shenanigans infuriated me. I had spent a couple of years in the early '60s in Nicaragua, recruited by an Agency of the U.S. Government as I came to the end of my hitch in the Army. I had been to Jump School, Ranger training, and Ranger Instructor School in the Army. Finished up Infantry Officer School after I was actually out of the Army. I trained Nicaraguans and Hondurans for a year. Then it took me nearly a year out in the jungle to figure out what we were actually up to in Central America. I was that young and naive. But when the penny finally dropped it p1ssed me off blind and I quit.
What we did inadvertently helped the Sandinistas' early recruitment. I was no fan. The Contras were worse. Congress was right to cut off aid to them.
The ineptitude of the Iran-Contra fiasco was impressive. Olllie North thought he could launder money without a trace by using American Express Traveler's Cheques.
The only one who got out unscathed was Vice President George H. W. Bush, who managed to convince the press that he was "out of the loop." The man who had just been head of the CIA was "out of the loop?" Yeah, right. Nobody told him anything. But he was cool. No one ever figured out who his cutout was.
RNJ
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Date Nov. 18 2020 2:00:39
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mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
She was the first big political figure to point out global warming issues, that really caught on big with other conservatives!
She was, because early in her career, and while she was PM, she was listening to scientists on climate change, but later she completely u-turned and became a climate change denier, guided by economists who saw environmental concerns as a threat to capitalism, who were funded by the fossil fuel industry.
To me this is the total insanity of ideology, when people stick to ideology over science. And this is also where politics gets crazy, when people stick to their position, party, ideology, whatever, over science. In this respect Trump is to politics what David Icke is to sport.... 
_____________________________
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Date Nov. 18 2020 17:38:07
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to Piwin)
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I began this thread, "The Trump Nightmare is Over!" on November 7, after the election that Joe Biden won. I obviously spoke too soon, given the rioting and insurrection at the US Capitol yesterday, inspired and instigated by Trump. He has demonstrated that he will go to any length to vent his spleen because of an election he clearly lost.
For the past two years, when discussing Trump with friends and colleagues, I have been suggesting that he should be removed from office via the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, as impeachment failed to convict him. The 25th Amendment allows for removal from office if the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet determine the president is unfit or unable to govern and state so in a letter to the leaders of the Senate and House. The problem has always been Vice President Mike Pence has been such an obsequious, sycophantic toady to Trump that he would never have agreed to it. Today, however there is actually talk of invoking the 25th Amendment among some Congressmen and others, but it is far too late.
We have Trump for another 13 days before the inauguration of Joe Biden as the next president. As was demonstrated yesterday, he could still wreak havoc over such a short period of time. During the last days of Richard Nixon as president in 1974, he was drinking heavily and was at times acting irrationally. As a result, then Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger issued an order to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commanders of the various combatant commands that any order from Nixon involving military action was not to be acted on without first checking with him (Schlesinger) or Secretary of State Kissinger. A similar order seems in order now regarding Trump.
Unfortunately, we are not rid of Trump just because he is leaving office. He will continue to be a thorn in the side of the Biden Administration and try to stir up trouble wherever he can. The most incredible thing to me is that more than 70 million Americans voted for Trump in spite of his clearly being deranged and his constant lying and misrepresentations; not to mention his running interference for Russian president Vladimir Putin against the best analysis and conclusions of our intelligence community regarding Russian actions against the US. We saw a segment of the 70 million Trumpsters attacking our Capitol and democratic institutions yesterday.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 7 2021 21:17:14
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to BarkellWH)
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From USA Today: "WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought and received assurance Friday from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that President Donald Trump would not be able to order a nuclear strike in a fit of rage." https://tinyurl.com/y5ngqh94
As I have mentioned before, I have a number of Facebook "friends" who are, or at least were until day before yesterday, staunch supporters of Trump. At least some of them still are. They are people whom I know well from years of close association while we lived and worked on a U.S. military base in the Marshall Islands.
All suffer in varying degrees from confirmation bias. In fact the phrase is too weak to describe their afflictions. "Confirmation mania" might come closer.
Any action by Trump or his enablers that is legitimately criticized, deplored or despised in conventional media is immediately excused by the flimsiest and most transparent fabrications circulating on the internet.
Any news organization which is the least bit critical of Trump is immediately demonized. This even includes Fox News. They are now labeled as traitors. So are scientific experts like Anthony Fauci.
Two of my friends will swallow any lie, no matter how far fetched, which excuses one of Trump's enormities. Their cravings are not assuaged by the deluge of falsehood that floods the web. They contiue to engorge themselves.
Furthermore, any important event or issue the Trumpocracy has opposed or disaparaged is governed by an elaborate conspiracy of occult forces.
For example, yesterday evening I read an "explanation" of the COVID-19 epidemic which began by breathlessly "informing"us that the "Wuhan virus lab" is owned by "Glaxo." The subsequent dense mass of text wove together details of the plot, incriminating the usual suspects: George Soros, Bill Gates, etc. etc.
Three minutes of Googling brought up an article on Reuters which I cited, summarizing, "Not only is this post false, nearly every sentence in it is a lie."
My friends earnestly believed that Adam Schiff's sister is married to some dangerous evil person, despite the fact that Schiff has no sister.
They are further motivated by extremely intense fear of the Democrat Party, who are bent upon subjecting them to communism, thus destroying democracy, the United States and the Christian religion.
Their fellow Trumpists could not have invaded the Capitol day before yesterday, since they are all peaceful, right thinking, patriotic Americans just like my friends. As soon as it wafted across the net that it was really antifa who ransacked the seat of government just to make Trump supporters look bad, my friends latched onto the idea with a death grip.
From my account, anyone who didn't know my friends would be inclined to ridicule them as fools and simpletons. But I know they are not. My diagnosis is that they have developed a form of mental illness.
I'm about halfway through Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow." The main theme of the book is a depiction of several perceptual and cognitive biases that are characteristic of nearly all humans. Kahneman cites prominent instances, and narrates psychological experiments that confirm the near universality of cognitive flaws like confirmation bias.
People will pay attention to something that confirms their beliefs, and ignore anything that conflicts with them. Having spent about a third of my time in the intelligence business for twenty years, the prevalence and danger of this universal human flaw were obvious.
My idea is that social media provide such a devastating flood of false narratives appealing to confirmation bias, that previously sensible people have now been reduced to malignant credulity.
The CEOs of social media titans make noises in Congressional hearings about their diligent efforts to limit the flood of disinformation on their platforms.
As the business is now structured this is practically an insurmountable task, and the media barons have a strong disincentive to tackle it seriously.
Facebook, Twitter, et al make their money by collecting user data, parsing users into convenient packages, and selling their attention to advertisers. Casual observation makes Mark Twain's dictum obvious: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is putting on its shoes." Studies have aimed to quantify this. One that I read concluded that falsehood fueled by fear or anger traveled six times as fast as the truth, so it spread exponentially further. Falsehood, fear and anger attract much more user engagement and make a lot more money for social media.
Any attempt to stem the flood of preposterous bullsh1t on the net is going to face powerful political opposition. Meanwhile villains like Trump will take advantage of it.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 8 2021 22:20:31
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to BarkellWH)
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The Trumpster conspiracy theorists who fervently believe the election was "rigged" against Trump by throwing out ballots, using "rigged" Dominion voting machines, etc., are just the latest in a long line of such nonsense and ignorance. Think of the moon-landing hoax, chemtrails, US government-planned 9/11 attacks, Peruvian Nazca lines designed by space aliens, Area 51 aliens in vats of formaldehyde, US government agencies conspired to assassinate JFK, anti-vaxxers, and on and on.
The Trumpsters are among those groups and individuals who reject rational thought and evidence-based reasoning, and instead opt for what they consider more "sexy" explanations for events and phenomena. One could pile on as much evidence as possible and it still would not deter them from pursuing their dreams of conspiratorial activity. In fact, and here is the final irony, the more you provide reasoned argument and evidence-based conclusions that undermine their precious conspiracy theories, the more convinced they become that you yourself are part of the conspiracy. For if you were not part of the conspiracy, why would you argue against it if not to conceal and protect it from exposure?"
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 9 2021 13:51:22
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to payaso)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: payaso
The contagious power of social media and the role of confirmation bias are clearly very important factors, but I am not sure that they are enough to explain these strange phenomena. I am not happy with the idea of invoking mental illness. That concept should be reserved for a disabling and often very distressing alteration in mental function and behaviour which invites a humane attempt to relieve suffering and disability, as we apply in cases of illness more generally.
Your point is well taken. My friends' behavior on the internet is so different from how they acted when we worked and played together years ago, that I groped clumsily for some forceful term to describe their delusions.
They complain that the Democrats are bent on takng away their "Freedom!". I think their freedom, relative to say, that of their grandparents has been diminished in a real sense, but I believe they identify the wrong agent.
When my grandfathers got up in the morning they decided what needed to be done that day on the farm or ranch, or already knew it from experience, or from having developed a strategy. Nobody told them what to do, or held them to account if their efforts were inadequate or ill considered. They were subject to weather, disease, market conditions--a number of impersonal forces. But they dealt with them on their own, with assistance from family, trusted employees and friends. One of my grandfathers was religious, and no doubt attributed any setbacks to the obscurity of God's plan. The other was a freethinker, but he had a sunny and optimistic disposition and a good sense of humor.
Though my father rose to fairly high rank in the military he regularly chafed under the policies of his superiors. He was a lieutenant when the first five Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force were captains and majors, and knew all of them well. He admired and was good friends with a majority of them. Still he complained at times of novelties in the post war military which he disagreed with.
My Trump supporting friends are all highly capable workers in technically demanding trades. But my experience in the business world suggests they were not involved in important decisions which had strong effects on their daily life.
People personify even abstract forces. It is the universal template of religion. My friends think the Democrats are out to destroy their freedom. My view is that it is not the work of a political faction; it is the effect of the hierarchical organization of our complex economy. You have to have a job to have food, clothing and shelter. If you have a job, you have a boss unless you are the CEO or an entrepreneur. If you have a boss, decisions that affect your life are going to be made by someone else. If you are unlucky, at some point in your career that "someone else" may turn out to be a son of a bitch. It's enough to p1ss anybody off.
Even if your boss is your friend and a sterling gentleman, you will at times resent the impersonal confining effects of the hierarchy, just as my father occasionally complained about trying to run an Air Force base right across the river from the Pentagon.
RNJ
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Date Jan. 9 2021 19:51:59
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: The Trump Nightmare is Over! (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
They complain that the Democrats are bent on taking away their "Freedom!".
To fully understand the lunacy of many of these people (not just your friends, Richard), I think it is important to explore what they mean by the term "freedom." To use one example that has been replayed time and again during the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the chief medical protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus is the use of face masks. The use of masks not only protects the wearer, but, more importantly, protects those around you from the droplets that could potentially spread the virus. We have seen protesters in front of state capitols, at the Sturges, SD motorcycle rally last summer, and at any number of other venues who refuse to wear a mask. Their refrain is always the same. They claim that wearing a mask "takes their freedom away."
Now, my first assignment in the US Foreign Service was from 1974-1976 at the US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. This was at the height of the Cold War, when Bulgaria was known as the "sixteenth Soviet Republic" because it followed Soviet policy so closely. While we in the diplomatic corps were not subject to Bulgarian repression, Bulgarians were under extreme repression and could not even travel within Bulgaria without what amounted to an internal passport. And travel abroad was only for the high-level nomenklatura. Any Bulgarian who was too friendly with a Westerner was under immediate suspicion.
I think I know something about what "freedom" is, and more importantly, what lack of freedom is. For these Trumpster yahoos to think that wearing a mask to protect themselves and others around them during a pandemic "takes their freedom away" is risible. They have no idea--none whatsoever--what lack of freedom is like. As a result, I don't think we have to take their complaints about their lack of "freedom" seriously. They have no idea what "freedom" is.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Jan. 9 2021 21:02:43
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