I Wanna See Some History…

Trump bombed s Syrian military installation. It’s been in all the papers.

I’m not going to comment about that, per se – what can I possibly add?

No, I’m not commenting about the pros and cons and rights and wrongs of yesterday’s action in Syria, or of whatever might be around the corner…

… but listening to the “sky is falling” reactions of some of my social media network – especially those below the age of about 45 or so – all I can think is “holy cow, good thing none of you were alive during the Cold War.” They’d all have died of heart attacks or institutionalized themselves from stress in mere weeks.

It seems that something like this, or worse, was happening every month throughout my childhood – which was spent twenty miles from a Minuteman III missile silo.

Just a sample, off the top of my head, from a couple of my high school and college years:

Soviets invaded Afghanistan; US supplied equipment to the Afghan resistance.
Polish labor unions started agitating against their Soviet oppressors; Soviets were ready to invade when the Polish Army staged a ‘coup’ and brutally shut down the protests; the US/UK, the Pope and the AFL-CIO smuggled money and other aid to the Polish trade unions to continue resisting the Communists.
China and Vietnam fought a war
India (then a Soviet ally) and Pakistan (then a US ally) fought a war.
India developed a nuke.
North Korea – a Soviet proxy – was in a constant state of war with South Korea, a US ally. While Kim Jong Il didn’t have the technology his son has, he also launched *many* raids into the South; Nork commando raids, with frequently-bloody resolutions, were a semi-regular thing.
Soviet sponsored terrorists – Baader-Meinhof, Brigati Rossi and many others – killed people in the streets in Europe.
Faced with Iraq (a Soviet proxy) building a nuclear reactor that could lead to the Arab Nuke, Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor that was being built by the French.
Israel (a US proxy) invaded Lebanon to push back terrorists sponsored by Iran, who’d been bombarding the Kibbutzim in the north with Soviet-made rockets; they ran into Syrian (Soviet proxy) forces (in brand-new Soviet tanks and aircraft), and destroyed them in head to head battle, leading to the brink of yet another Mid-east war.
Cuba (Soviet Proxy) sent troops to aid various sub-saharan dictators (Soviet proxies); US sent aid to the opposition.
Hezb’allah (a Syrian/Iranian proxy) kidnapped American diplomats, businesspeople and military advisors in Lebanon, killing some of them.
Soviet planes and submarines constantly probed US and NATO defenses; US and NATO planes and submarines constantly returned the favor, leading to many tense moments)
Various communist (Sovet proxy) groups launched terror, guerilla and electoral campaigns in South and Central America; the US supported their opposition. Borderline civil war erupted in many countries, supported by both sides.
Several times during the ’70s and ’80s, errors on both sides led the nuclear forces on *both* sides to go to advanced stages of alert – basically tightening the finger on the hair-trigger. This, at a time when US missile crews were on fifteen minute alert, and at every US bomber base (including Grand Forks and MInot), there were always a couple of B-52s loaded with nukes, their crews in a ready room yards away, warmed up and ready to take off on five minutes’ notice
The US, responding to the Soviet deployment of “SS20” intermediate range missiles to eastern Europe, sent missiles of our own to Western Europe.
The Soviets spent millions of dollars of hard-earned foreign currency to support a “peace” movement – against US nukes in Europe.
During talks over these nukes in Rejkjavik, Iceland, President Reagan called Premiere Gorbachev’s bluff, and walked out. The world’s landed punditry solemnly intoned it was the most dangerous event in human history. (In fact, Reagan called Gorbachev’s bluff, Gorbachev blinked. It was the beginning of the end of the USSR – but nobody knew it then).
And the entire time, half a million US troops and a ready-for-war NATO (in 1980, the militaries of most NATO countries were 4-6 times larger than they are today) faced something like a million Soviet and “Warsaw Pact” soldiers across a completely militarized border that split Germany into two countries.

Again – not commenting on yesterday’s events themselves. Just the reactions I’m seeing.

Posted

April 7, 2017

War And Peace

Mitch Berg

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Comments

100 responses to “I Wanna See Some History…”

Joe Doakes

April 9, 2017

You’re missing the point me, Emery. If Obama negotiated a deal with Russia to completely rid Syria of chemical weapons, then Trump would not have had to order our pilots not to bomb chemical weapons on a Syrian airbase. The fact is that Obama got taken for a ride and you went right along with him. The difference is: he knew it was phony and didn’t care. You didn’t know.

By the way: it’s not mugging for the camera if there are actual chemical weapons for Syria to deploy.
Emery

April 9, 2017

You make a very persuasive case JD. I’ll agree with you as far as the Alt-right goes. Fear and ignorance are widespread. There is no understanding of just what is real and what is not. In fact, you don’t have to know anything to be a conspiracy theorist. Which in my opinion, pretty much sums up the Alt-right movement.

As for your more recent comment: I can only pray that Mattis and McMasters stick around for the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
Mammuthus Primigenius

April 9, 2017

Well, that was Obama’s half-assed excuse for ignoring his “red line” on chemical weapons in Syria. Russia stepped up and said it would take care of the problem. This allowed Obama to take a step back and pretend that the problem had been taken care of.
What is infuriating is that the media apparently knew all along that this was not the case. The NY Times is retroactively reporting that the people who certify these things were not happy with the transparency of the process, and believed that it was possible that some chemical munitions remained. Thanks for the timely report, Pinch.
Chlorine gas is a simple, easy to produce agent. It was the first to be used in World War One — by the Brits, if Robert Graves told the truth in Goodbye to All That.
Chlorine gas emulsifies the fat in human tissue. It destroys the lungs. Nasty way to die, gasping like a fish . . .
Emery

April 9, 2017

This Trump strike was a political move: 1) for domestic purposes, 2) to signal Russia, Assad, and Iran (with huge possible counter-productive consequences), and 3) to warn-off potential adversaries, especially North Korea and China. And to show support for our Arab “allies.” Plus, Israel likes it (just like our Iraq invasion that turned out so well.)

Trump et al. (and I include the NSC generals) are playing short term checkers with no time to really consider second or third-order consequences. But we are really playing dangerous three dimensional chess (or Go) led by our delusional, inattentive chess-master. What happens when we escalate and kill Russians in Syria, or Russians kill Americans?

The NSC military leadership has been completely engrossed in our 2-decade Middle Eastern cul-de-sac, while the existential threats to US dominance have been Russia (nuclear), and China (primary economic). Our leaders are not prepared to face the consequences of these signalling (posturing) moves gone bad. And systemic White House chaos precludes adequate consideration of local or global counter-responses.

Look, agreed that Obama screwed the pooch in Syria; we all can count the ways. Yet, there was a good reason that he dithered — we never (short of conquest and occupation) could determine Syrian outcomes. We could only raise the scope and level of violence there.

Imagine the Russians didn’t intervene and Assad fell. Do you really think that the violence in Syria would be over? That the new Syrian government(s) would favor American interests in the region?

Tell me how this ends well. Without substituting wet dreams for strategy.
Mammuthus Primigenius

April 9, 2017

I’ve already said that I do not like this, Emery. Even with no WMD, it was arguable that American interests were at stake in Iraq, as well as the authority of the security council. Iraq violated the 1992 ceasefire accord in many ways. It was still not in compliance in March, 2003. You must remember the eighteen month long “rush to war” with Iraq.
Putin is not as secure he seems to be. His economy is, essentially, duplicating the failures of the Soviet economy that led the collapse of the USSR. Declining living standards with no end in sight, while the military is expanded. Russia still uses a hated conscription system that is both corrupt and brutally abusive to the short-term draftees.
Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost — reform and criticism of the existing Soviet system — devolved decision making to local levels while permitting dissent. The result was that the “prison house of nations” came apart at the seams. It could happen again.
justplainangry

April 10, 2017

we never (short of conquest and occupation) could determine Syrian outcomes

Really, SFB eTASS? You must be related to Captain obvious. Yet, you have no solutions to offer. None. Other than 0bumbler screwed up, but it was a good screw up. What’s a couple lies along the way and another pissed-on red line? Never mind gassed children, of course.
Emery

April 10, 2017

“Never mind gassed children, of course.”

You must be referring to the children that Trump refuses entry into the US. What a hypocrite.
Mammuthus Primigenius

April 10, 2017

You must be referring to the children that Trump refuses entry into the US. What a hypocrite.
The best solution is to leave them in their own country and not have them killed by their own government, Emery. Are you against this?
Emery

April 10, 2017

In my experience it is always unwise to rely on the hope that people will behave in the future fractionally less stupidl than they have behaved in the past

Do we want to be “the indispensable nation” in every context.
Banning would say “unequivocally no” to all of these.
Hillary/Rice/Albright would say “unequivocally yes” to all of these.

The fact is, we are going to ignore a great many humanitarian crises and civil wars. Occasionally, however, we won’t ignore them.There was no logical, strategic, national-interest-based reason for the 59 cruise missiles. It was an impulsive choice, not a strategic choice.They did almost nothing physically (a very small boom as booms go) and they seem to have done very little symbolically (Assad flew missions from the bombed airfield the very next day and they were missions against the very same town he gassed). He doesn’t seem overly impressed with our 59 Tomahawks. I don’t expect us never to engage for humanitarian reasons, but I would like those engagement to be considered, to have a strategic component, to take account of follow-on and second-order elements, and to be clearly explained — both to the American people and to the people in the rest of the world to whom we are delivering some sort of message.

Trump’s impulsive gesture failed by all these metrics. That said, we killed seven people and dented a few hangars, so in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t amount to much.
justplainangry

April 10, 2017

Do we want to be “the indispensable nation” in every context.

Open borders, bring them all in! How indispensable. You ARE the epitome of hypocrisy. Every time you bloviate, you remind everyone what SFB stands for. Hey, speaking of SFB, how about that motive for Russians to prefer sTrumpet over sHrillary? Can you even see the goalposts? Oh, never mind, brown matter is clouding your eyesight.
Emery

April 10, 2017

Your troll game has really gone down hill. Is it possible to send it back to rewrite and punch it up a bit?

We need, we need, we need. We need a lot of things. One of the most important things we need is to stop intervening in other people’s countries

And for every one of those terrorists we’ve killed there’s plenty of evidence that we had huge collateral damage of what? – women and children (the babies you refer to). Guess what that does? Makes more terrorists.

Congratulations though, you’ve stumbled on the recipe for perpetual war – which should make people in the war business happy — but counter intuitively, does not.
bikebubba

April 10, 2017

Before we accuse Trump of just being impulsive and the like, it strikes me that we ought to see how things shake out with this little deal. Reagan didn’t do any more than what Trump did here–except for getting Gaddhafi’s daughter killed if I remember right–and that seemed to do a world of good. Libya all of a sudden didn’t want to play that game.

Until the Clinton administration came around, of course.
justplainangry

April 10, 2017

Congratulations though, you’ve stumbled on the recipe for perpetual war

Go sing kumbaya while walking along any of the red lines drawn by your dear leader. We’ll see how long you survive. Because if we just disarmed ourselves and gave everyone else everything they wanted and reverted back to the stone age, everything will be OK. Peace will dawn and unicorns will fly out of your ass. Yep, that’s the solution. Why do you not believe in Darwin? Why does your progressive reasoning refuses to accept theory of evolution? Or does it only apply to animal kingdom? You are a real tool, full of internal contradictions and hypocrisy. Always on display. Always a reminder what we have to fight to let reason and moraility shine on this great country. You are a quart shot, time to go refill, SFB eTASS.
Emery

April 10, 2017

I think by mid-to-late summer the market, economists, and politicians will come back to reality and reset their respective expectations of the Trump presidency and the probabilities of it meeting it’s vaguely laid out agenda.

The most disturbing issue is with a lack of progress on the domestic front and a record low approval rating, Trump has now decided to change his foreign policy direction (going directly against his voters’ expectations). It’s always dangerous when a struggling president decides to use military might to try to change the public’s opinion of himself. Unbelievably, it seems to have worked over the last week. He’s going to do more of the same until an untended consequence arises.
justplainangry

April 11, 2017

I think by mid-to-late summer

Hey, how is that brexit prognostication working out for yea? Just checking to see if your opinion is still worth shit. Yep. Yes it is.
Emery

April 11, 2017

Your arrogance is surpassed only by your ignorance. As I have learned from trying to ignite the faintest spark of reason here and there, it is simply impossible to communicate with people who are unable or unwilling to engage with reality. Quite frankly, Brits and people like you finally seem to have managed what both Napoleon and Hitler could not achieve: to isolate the island from the continent.

Scotland may leave the Union, the UK will certainly shed millions of jobs, the economy will enter a very prolonged and deep recession, tax revenues will plummet and government borrowing will ultimately be constrained when the markets realize that the UK is not ever going to “grow its way out of its debt.” After the party, comes the hangover. It may have felt good to show those no good continentals that the UK is special and will be able to get on just fine without all those nasty EU rules. Well good luck with all that.
bikebubba

April 11, 2017

Emery, not to enter on your feud with JPA, but it does strike me that it’s already pretty clear that the early prognostications about Brexit were pretty far off, and maybe a degree of humility on your part on other predictions might be in order.

As far as I can tell, the early predictions were based on the assumption that Eurocrats in Brussels would insist on a suicidal package of import tariffs and such to “punish” the British. Thankfully, someone explained to them that this would also hurt the rest of the EU and lead to more exits. Reality is that if anyone truly believes that heavy taxation and regulation leads to prosperity, they’ve been smoking something good. The EU needs to catch on to this.

In the same way, it’s worth noting that in Syria, what the “smart guys” told us to do has gotten something like half a million people killed. Maybe it’s time to try something different.
justplainangry

April 11, 2017

Ahh, the smell of roasting SFB eTASS in the morning…

UK is not ever going to “grow its way out of its debt.”

Debts are good, no? You sure have no problems US running up debts, especially for entitlement programs to buy votes, as long as their for libturds. But oh my gosh and golly, reality is UK will never survive being so debt ridden, even though it is lower than US’s. What a maroon. A hypocritical maroon. Keep digging.
Emery

April 11, 2017

BB: I like jpa and his opposing views. I hope he doesn’t take it personally; I certainly don’t. And just between you and me, I enjoy watching MBerg’s click count ascending.

Brexit was never about the obvious and about reason. It was about fear, ignorance, stupidity, and Farage, Gove, Johnson et al. using lies and distortion to promote their own shabby careers. More fool the British that so many fell for such a thin charade. Cameron was right to campaign for Remain so that the UK could help reform the EU. But his message was lost in translation. Nothing like losing its colonies to make a colonial power rethink its position.
Emery

April 11, 2017

JPA: Let’s get back to the heart of the matter, shall we?
Pro-Tip: You, sir, are an idiot who confuses a tweet for domestic policy and a missile strike as foreign policy. First, look for a proof of concept. The Trump presidency, like many start-up ventures, currently does not have one.
bikebubba

April 11, 2017

Emery, that’s just a silly way of dealing with the world. Reality is that Brexit has some powerful, real, motivations–specifically Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain, not to mention other new EU members with a spendthrift view of the world. They simply didn’t want to pay that bill. I remember learning about the EU when i was in Germany in 1989, and having just paid 5000 lire for a pizza in Rome, my question was What kind of idiot would let the Italians have anything to do with their currency?

Well, we know what kind of idiot now, but those idiots are waking up to realize that being bound to tens of billions of debt by the PIIGS and others, along with being bound to whatever edicts come out of Brussels, is just no fun. Bigness for the sake of bigness simply doesn’t do anyone any good, and people need to remember the disasters of the EU, Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, and the like to clue in on this.
bikebubba

April 11, 2017

Another way of phrasing this is that Brexit is the equivalent of the Trump win–it’s not just bigotry, but a real understanding that our “benevolent” overlords don’t have our best interests in mind. Blue collar guys figure things out when power generation with coal is effectively banned, and when their faith institutions are mocked and denigrated. Doubling down on that–which is pretty much what you’re doing, Emery–makes the whole deal worse.
justplainangry

April 11, 2017

BB, you cannot reason with a leftist – they are always right, even when they are demonstrably wrong. Like on Trump/Russia collusion thing. What’s the motive, you ignorant slut, SFB eTass? You predicted a stronger EU and UK devolved into stone age the minute Brexit votes were counted. How the times have changed! Soros is the amoral, depraved elite, you are nothing of the sort. You are just a mindless follower who cannot think for himself, nor capable of an original thought.
Joe Doakes

April 11, 2017

I hate to pile on so late in the game, but Emery, seriously, you need to look at your situation.

You confidently asserted that Obama had rid Syria of chemical weapons; therefore, Trump’s bombing was all for show. Two days later, the media admitted that, yes, they knew all along Obama had not rid Syria of chemical weapons. You were lied to, and believed the lie, and defended the lie, only to find yourself looking up at the undercarriage of the bus.

Same as when Obama told you that if you liked your doctor, you could keep your doctor.

Same as when Susan Rice told you that the Benghazi consulate attack was a response to an internet video.

The fact of the matter is that the Obama administration repeatedly and deliberately to the American people for the sole purpose of making themselves look less like the monstrous screw-ups they really were. You ate up every lie and licked the spoon. They made you look like a chump. A smart, sophisticated, politically aware guy like you was flat wrong and all of us deplorable people, bitterly clinging to our guns and Bibles, were correct.

Given that history, I’m not interested in listening to you complain that Trump hasn’t solved all the world’s problems in his first 100 days. He didn’t create the mess in Syria and probably doesn’t have a viable plan to bring Peace In Our Time – nobody does, not in that region of the world, not since 1095 when Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade. Trump doesn’t have that kind of influence.

Trump can’t enact legislation to repeal Obama-care or cut taxes or balance the budget – Congress hates him, including the Never-Trumpers in his own party (he barely got a superbly qualified Supreme Court nominee seated to maintain the ideological balance of the court). Another government shut-down is in the offing unless Congressional Republicans bend over again and if they do, the debt will balloon and you’ll blame Trump for that, too.

You’re not the usual troll I see on conservative websites. You’re a smart guy, Emery. And it’s time for a smart guy to have an “ah-ha” moment to realize that a huge chunk of the things you believed were lies, intentionally and deliberately told by people you trusted, solely to mislead you. It’s time to start considering the possibility that people who do that are not your friends and do not have your best interests at heart. It’s time to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they’re using you as nothing more than a useful tool to achieve their ends, after which they’ll drop you like a hot potato.

Which means you should find new friends. I, for one, would love to spend an afternoon at the shooting range followed by a couple of beers and a basket of buffalo wings. Will you join me?
Emery

April 11, 2017

JPA: I wonder if in exchange for Russia giving up Assad, the US will lift the sanctions on Russia and to sweeten the deal we will let them keep the Ukraine too. In my opinion, Putin will not give up his Russian naval facility in Tartus, Syria where Russia bases it’s nuclear-powered battle cruisers, as well as nuclear submarines. Which allows Russia to project power into the Mediterranean. It also seems pretty clear that Putin doesn’t want Saudi’s proposed Qatar–Turkey pipeline through Syria. As Syria’s rationale for rejecting the Qatar proposal was said to be “to protect the interests of Russian”, which is Europe’s top supplier of natural gas.

I’m not entirely certain how this will play into the ‘you are either with us or against us’ as Trump’s foreign policy is evolving from his America first policy. And now the White House accusing Russia of a coverup is like Burger King accusing McDonald’s of selling hamburgers.

As a Russian immigrant, what’s your take on Putin’s kleptocracy and where this might be headed?
Emery

April 11, 2017

JD: Well now, if anyone knows about confusing the world through disinformation and false narratives it would be the current administration in the White House, no?
justplainangry

April 12, 2017

SFB, JD pointed out SPECIFICALLY previous WH lies! You have just completely skirted and deflected the question of acknowledging their lies and your stupidity for believing in them. Do you have any scruples? Any morals? Any integrity? Any self-awareness? Any humility?

JD – this is yet another perfect example of leftist thought process (and I use this term very loosely as applied to libturds). Their motto to live by is “never, ever having to say they are sorry”.
justplainangry

April 12, 2017

As a Russian immigrant, what’s your take on Putin’s kleptocracy and where this might be headed?

I have said this umpteen times, other than for a very brief period of time in 1917 and 1990’s, Russians were never, ever free for thousands of years. They were always under a thumb of one strongman or another. They not only do not know what freedom means, they do not know how to spell the word. If they did, Putin would never had been able to get where he is today. Yes, there is token resistance, but Putin IS “Mother Russia”. He represents it, embodies it. And as economic conditions in Russia continue to spiral into the toilet, especially since high ($100+) crude prices will likely never return since US now controls the upper end of the price bracket, Putin will have no choice but to start wars to keep the rabble occupied. China is in a similar situation, but further from the precipice.

What is amazing, is that both Russia and China are the result of policies, morals and ideology that you, EFB eTASS hold so dear. This is a result of all your wishes. All your desires. This is what you advocate for. And you refuse to see it. You are blind, misinformed and ignorant. I disagree with JD. You are not smart. You are just a tool and a parrot of progressive talking points.
Emery

April 12, 2017

The Alt-right continues to push a “false flag” scenario. As their source, they refer to Seymour Hersh who said that in 2013 it was the rebels, not the Syrian government, who used poison gas trying to draw the U.S. into Syria.

But what about Clinton, Rice and Obama? Keep the deflection shields up boys!

The Alt-right and Trump are gifts that keep on giving.
justplainangry

April 12, 2017

What is this fucking non-sequitur garbage? What does alt-right have to do with anything? Is that your new boogieman? Got your new talking points this morning? Tired of alternate news that came to bite you in the ass? You have not addressed any charges leveled at your comprehension and blind trust in dear leader pronouncements. Deflection is your middle name, you own it.
Emery

April 12, 2017

Removing Bannon from the White House would be an important step in the right direction. Many of the weird dysfunctional delusions, lies and false conspiracy theories that Trump believes have been fed to him by Bannon. Many of Trump’s mistakes and failures have also been pushed by Bannon, who boosts Trump’s worst instincts.
justplainangry

April 12, 2017

You sure like to spew non-sequitur talking points. Are you backed up? Laxative finally kicking in?
Emery

April 12, 2017

Funny how the world is more self-correcting than alarmists predict. Nobody ever sold many books or magazines predicting that everything was going to revert to the mean and be just fine.
Emery

April 13, 2017

BB: The point to this Trump vote, like the Brexit vote, is the side arguing for against an open world, particularly those voting in spite to send a message to an elite, will be among the first to suffer the consequences of a closed economy, as long term slowing of growth and opportunity ensues. The choices are between a world of winners and losers, and a world of losers.

Losers hide behind walls and fear change. Winners embrace change and lead it.
In the history of the world, the winners are always those who adapt to new technology, new demography, change in all its forms. Post-WW2, the US, Canada, and Western Europe embraced openness, the Soviet Union, China, South America and India shut out the world and suffered for it until they chose to be more open. The winners of the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution were those who welcomed the technology and social changes, not those who tried to wall themselves off from it. Walls always give way, whether it be to a Mongol Horde, a well-armed Royal Navy, or Pokémon Go on the internet. Name a happy, prosperous society that walled itself off for more than a generation.
bikebubba

April 13, 2017

Emery, would you PLEASE ditch the talking points and acquaint yourself with reality? Please? You are trying to tell me that a guy with businesses all over the world wants to totally close borders–that a guy whose wife and servants come from Eastern Europe wants to eliminate immigration completely.

Think about this a minute, OK? The reality is that Trump simply wants to regulate trade differently than his predecessors, and if you’re going to tell me that NAFTA (14000 pages) and GATT (28000 pages) represent free trade, I’ve got a bridge I’d be willing to sell you cheap. Did you know they took the word “gullible” out of the dictionary?

Moreover, if you want to figure out why the Soviet Union, China, and India lagged, the answer is not “they were closed to the world”. The answer is “socialism.” Tighter trade laws were just a symptom of the disease.
justplainangry

April 13, 2017

A simple question – does a country exist without a border? What defines a “country”?
Emery

April 13, 2017

More so than any other nationality, Americans seek to continually renew and improve themselves and the country. While that is a positive trait on the surface, beneath that surface what drives that is a self-loathing impatience that refuses to be content with the status quo, personally and nationally.

What has made this caustic since the baby boomers is a change in perspective, from where most Americans blamed themselves for their own failings, and saw their country’s failings as a call to work harder, to one where most Americans have learned to blame others. Re-invention only leads to improvement when coupled with optimism. When pessimism predominates, re-invention leads to border walls, gated communities, and tribalism.

Whatever you think of Reagan, he exuded optimism for the US. And that is why Trump, even were his policy ideas sound (not all of them are stupid), would continues to demonstrate why he is a terrible president. He is profoundly pessimistic about the US, and the US can only be led well by an optimist.
justplainangry

April 13, 2017

So no answers but more mindless and senseless bloviation. Just more proof that libturds are not interested in conversation, just pontificating on nothing in particular, using big word that signify nothing, just for sake of satisfying their innate and inane desire to listen to themselves in an echo chamber.
Joe Doakes

April 13, 2017

Profoundly pessimistic?

Just the opposite. That’s why his slogan was “Make America Great Again,” because he believes we were once great AND CAN BE AGAIN. Trump’s optimism stands in stark contrast to The Light Bringer who wanted to fundamentally transform America from the leader of the free world into just another former imperial second-rate country like Britain, France, Spain or Italy.

Emery, I begin to suspect your goal is to live long enough to see the day when your grandkids salute the flag of The US Section of the North American Bureau of the Western Hemisphere Division of The One World Government.
bikebubba

April 13, 2017

Regarding walls and isolation, it strikes me that two great walls that have benefited the United States for over two centuries are called the “Atlantic Ocean” and the “Pacific Ocean”. A friendly “Great White North,eh” hasn’t hurt, either. In the same way, did not the British prosper for centuries behind their moat, the English Channel and the North Sea? (at least until Labor took over post-WWII)

It is also worth noting that when one looks at historic data, economic growth was greater when our government relied on tariffs for revenue than since 1916. Hence I don’t think we can draw a clear picture of “progress of history” and posit that “Trump is agin it” and predict disaster. It’s more complex than that.
Emery

April 13, 2017

I’m a process engineer. I design automation systems. These are actual physical items that have to function and perform. Before any product can be designed, you first have to establish exactly what you want the product to do. Then, and this is the hard part, you have to figure out how to make it perform the way you want.

Trump can’t even decide what he wants his product, which is his policy, to do. He can’t get past the initial foundational steps. There is no way figure out how to implement any policy without first establishing what the policy is.

He says he wants to create jobs. That’s like saying I want to build cars. OK, what kind of cars? How should they perform? Who are the target buyers?

What kinds of jobs. Who can fill them? What are the target buyers for the goods and services they produce?

See what I mean? Trump is grasping at straws. He is the proverbial fish out of water. If a company does not develop products with any sound direction, it will soon go bankrupt because it wasted valuable resources on wasted efforts.

This is exactly how Trump is running the nation. He is wasting time and resources on wasted efforts that result in nothing. Meanwhile problem persist and worsen.

Trump is a salesman, not a manager, not a creator, not a doer. He sold his supporters a bill of goods that he has no idea how to create. Worse than that, he keeps changing the goods he sold.
bikebubba

April 13, 2017

It could be that Trump is flailing, or it could be that Trump is a good salesman who doesn’t tell you everything in the first meeting, Emery. The way I see it right now is he has powerful enemies in the Democrats and media, but he’s still getting more good things done in a few months than his predecessor did in eight years.

More or less, you’re assuming that the collegial existence you lead at work exists in Washington DC when you are asking for all those specs. Trump gives the press that, and they will send him through the meat grinder. In such an environment, it is necessary to keep people off balance, and he’s doing that brilliantly.
Emery

April 13, 2017

“I will label China a currency manipulator on day one.” — “I’ll build a wall that Mexico will pay for.” — “I’ll repeal and replace Obamacare.” — “I’ll get rid of the Export-Import Bank,”– “I’ll stay away from any military involvement in Syria.” — “I’m ashamed of Janet Yellen at the Fed Reserve and I’ll get rid of her.” — “I’ll look into changing obsolete NATO.” — “I’ll pass a Muslim ban.” — “I’ll pay for the wall with an import tax.”

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

With each new development Trump proves that actual governance is far more difficult than he ever imagined as a campaigner. Formulating policy, influencing global finance, facing down experienced foreign leaders and a recalcitrant congress represent a different universe than brow beating North Jersey cement contractors. To make matters worse, his equally clueless advisory staff afford him no means of masking his own ignorance.
justplainangry

April 13, 2017

It took 0bumbler 8 years to send the country and the world into shitter and you expect a successor to fix it on day one? Are ARE fucking nuts! Engineer my ass, unless you are a sanitation engineer. And g*d help anyone who uses your engineering services because you have no common sense, comprehension ability, or logic whatsoever. And you prove it with every rambling talking points post.
Emery

April 13, 2017

Trump could get a lot of good done with just the low hanging fruit, tax reform and infrastructure spending. But the freedom caucus and the Democrats don’t want to play, and Trump is incompetent, so it looks like nothing happens.
bikebubba

April 13, 2017

Lessee…the pattern I see is that Trump is building a wall, he has changed the dynamic of the relationship with China and is encouraging NATO members to live up to treaty obligations, and he’s issued two orders on immigration that have been stayed.

Emery, you simply are saying that if Trump hasn’t gotten everything he campaigned on in the first 100 days, he’s a failure. By that standard, each of our 45 Presidents is a failure.
Emery

April 13, 2017

BB: The wall is in Trump’s proposed budget, it will be paid for by the American taxpayer. Re: China It’s generally a good thing to have a working relationship with China. The fact of the matter is China has not been “manipulating it’s currency” for several years now. Trump is/was merely attempting to fight a battle that was over years ago. Whether one would call Trump a pragmatist or an opportunistic “flip-flopper” depending on one’s perspective. I would suggest he’s a little of both.

The problem with Trump’s America first agenda is that most of the problems a nation has to deal with are transnational, so by definition you have to cooperate with others. America wins in all of its trade deals, because America is always the bigger partner in the deal, so the other country is adopting the American system. Jobs move to other countries because the world changes and moving those jobs makes economic sense. Signing trade deals with those other countries ensures that you get the benefits of those moved jobs, rather than just the costs; it was going to happen either way.

America is invested in the world, because the world has adopted the American system as its own, and we’re the biggest and best player in that system. We rise and fall with the world. Hurting the world to achieve some short term gain hurts us far more as the effects on the world boomerang back to cost us much more, plus we’ve lost our friends and our position as the center of the world economy.

America first is a very 19th century idea. Welcome to the 21st century: we will succeed or fail depending on how the whole world succeeds or fails. There’s no turning back. Any attempt to do so just triggers more failure. Personally, I would like to see more of the opportunistic flip-flopper/pragmatist side of Trump.
justplainangry

April 14, 2017

Hurting the world

And therein lies the crux of the matter. SFB eTASS would rather the world hurt US. Because ROP is so peaceful! Because EU economic model is so successful! Because Canadian Health system is so awesome! Hey, SFB, what the FUCK are you doing HERE then? Why did you come HERE? Why did you leave that socialist paradise of Canadeh? Why aren’t you immigrating to Venezuela? Why DIDN’T you immigrate to Venezuela? And now you insist US change to the model of what you left behind and did not migrate to? Can you feel the hypocrisy? Rank hypocrisy. You will have to excuse us while we continue to expose your anti-American, soci@list, Marxist ramblings. And no, we are not buying your fucking rope! You WILL fail.
justplainangry

April 14, 2017

Allright Mitch, Stuck in moderation.
Emery

April 14, 2017

I get tired of the single issue whiners. They take whatever bad is happening in the world or the economy, and blame all the world’s ills on their one little hobbyhorse. For many of your ilk, that single issue today is migration. But you, JPA, are almost refreshing in your antediluvian critique. You will never see 1955 again.