The Trump administration 2

I understand to many Trump can and will never do anything right or positive. Anything he does will be evil.If he kisses a baby then it's only to get a taste of flesh so he can get the CIA to abduct the baby later so he can eat it.

I'm not saying Trump isn't 101 shitty things but this statement is really important. Here is a US leader who is finally pointing out the US aren't knights on shinning horses.  They assassinte people. They cause factions in the world to fight each other and supply both sides with weapons. They don't worry too much about civilian causalties with their drone strikes. The US does a lot of bad shit and has a lot of blood on their hands.  It's nice to see someone admit to it. Hopefully, and it's a stretch, Trump does something about that and begins cleaning up the US foreign policy and war business.

I think some read too much into this statement of Trump's. One thing we know for sure about hiim is that he is not introspective. The other thing we know is that he says more or less what pops into his mind at the moment. He often contradicts his prior statements very shortly thereafter.

So far as I know, the USA is still killing people with drones, still doing all those things that 'killers' do. It may just be that Trump doesn't see the necessity of being polite about the killing. After all, it's not as if the ICC is going to grab the president of the USA and hold for trial...

re: Trump's "killers" comment...

As I said on the previous thread, Trump gave the Iraq War as his example of what America's killers do. Given that he claims to have always been against that war, he probably did want his audience to think that that was an example of something he would not do.

That is, to the extent that he was thinking tactically at all. Most likely, it was just a convenient bit of "whatabouterry" that popped into his head. It's one of the most common fallbacks used in debate, so it's not surprising that Trump, speaking off the top of his head, would latch onto it.

I wouldn't go as far as Paladin in framing this as some sort of important milestone in US political discourse, but it is interesting(dare I say refreshing) to see a POTUS so casually toss out a blunt truth like that, even if put forth for self-serving purposes. I still rememeber Michelle Obama being raked over the coal by conservatives for saying that her husband's election was "the first time in my life that I'm proud to be an American". Can you imagine how they would have reacted if she had said "What's so bad about Putin? We've got a few killers over here!"

I know we're not supposed to bring this up — but it is staring us brutally in the face. I keep asking myself this simple question: If you came across someone in your everyday life who repeatedly said fantastically and demonstrably untrue things, what would you think of him? If you showed up at a neighbor's, say, and your host showed you his newly painted living room, which was a deep blue, and then insisted repeatedly — manically — that it was a lovely shade of scarlet, what would your reaction be? If he then dragged out a member of his family and insisted she repeat this obvious untruth in front of you, how would you respond? If the next time you dropped by, he was still raving about his gorgeous new red walls, what would you think? Here's what I'd think: This man is off his rocker. He's deranged; he's bizarrely living in an alternative universe; he's delusional. 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/andrew-sullivan-the-madness-of-king-donald.html

I do not agree with this. While I do not have the latest polls and I realize that time is running out for unification, Taiwan was for many years split roughly between about 1/3 wanting indpendence declared, 1/3 wanting to join China soon or now, 1/3 wanting to join China later with conditions (presumably after things get better from their perspective. This split means that the needle for joining or not moves with that 1/3's definition of how likely their conditions can/will be met, their optimism, and timeline.

I would not exaggerate any desire there for a full break with China as I don't think there is a consensus for that. Here often this is presumed to be becuase of a threat from the PRC but it is much more complicated and quite emotional an issue.

We have to recognize that Taiwan is made up of a local Tawanese population along with people whose grandparents left China and want those ties. Those grandparents have siblings in China mainland, Hong Kong, and abroad. (I know more than one family exactly like that.) We should not allow prejudice against the PRC to underestimate the desire for reunification among a significant portion of the population -- all be it on terms and conditions that vary by person.

The migration to Taiman in 1949 changed a dynamic in which you can see Taiwan as being mostly independent historically from China (the place failed regimes would go to as well as being controlled by outsiders).

As well the Nationalists when they went to Taiwan left representing China and took with them national treasures that belong to all China. It woudl be impossible to have civil discussion about a break from China without that coming up. However, there is little desire on both sides (from the population) I think to have such a conversation adn the government alternates between those closer to or further from mainland.

For many the view of Taiwan is over-simplified (as is Tibet).

The mean man yelled at him on the phone

Sad.

But Trump will build a wall that makes his look like a kerb.

Does not make sense -- they have had multiple changes of government since the 1990s so the Taiwanese government has had no position going back that time.

Taiwan has not had the same government through that time and so it has not had a consistent opinion. Some governments of Taiway have been much more open towards eventual reunion than others.

The governmetn have reflected the opinion of the people which wavers on this. They also ahve had scandals in government that have also affected the politics and when China has been to bellicose the more independent minded party is more likely to win.

did the president of the USA say Pocahontas is now the face of the democratic party? yup

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/video/trump-on-warren-pocahontas-is-now-th...

There is nothing mainstream about the media anyway and it has not been that way in some time.

Those who attack the mainstream media are whipping a dead horse.

The media has long split into multiple self-customizable streams of infomration such that each person has their own media universe of their own creation.

One of the seide effects of this is massive confimation bias abd where there were low standards there are now none at all.

It is time we stop nfighting the old battle against mainstream midea and face the present information war as it really is.

I'll start: The main stream media had some independence from most govenrments before it disintegrated. What it is being replaced with is a battle where many of its replacements support one or other party more directly than the kind of bias we used to see. Where we saw bias we now have outright fabrication that used to be more rare. There is no longer a nationalistic bias but now one specifically for one party and against another. The direct conflicts are now so legion that people don't even remark on them anymore.

Back in the day, the main stream media was arrogant, biased but still fairly independent. More recently it was allowed to be part of larger interests that did more than media and developped more stark conflicts (like in Canada when Bell was able to buy enough media that it could largely reduce and shape stories it did not like about itself). Eventually things got tot he point where the mdeia became more an more aligned with political parties such that they are effectively merging. This is a very key component of Facism.

So complaining about the old single large main stream media was a thing but it is largely unhelpful especially as we celebrate its demise while spending little attention to what has already been moving to replace it -- a Fascistic relationship between politics and a new media devoid of any shame or standards that has no independence whatsoever -- not even the arms-length relationships that existed previously.

People really need to look at the other side of the coin soon before it is too late.

In other news Trump is threatening to crack down on anti-Trump humour.

While Bannon loves him some Italian fascists, another assistance to Il Douche loves him some Hungarian fascism

http://lobelog.com/why-is-trump-adviser-wearing-medal-of-nazi-collaborat...

That is a matter of opinion and I think our history of partisan media is both as old as newspapers and has always been extremely bad.

In the US the first thing the Patriots did when they began the "revolution" was to have mobs burn down all the Loyalist presses.  That is what is meant by a country founded on free speech. Of course don't tell our American friends that free speech was an English common law right in the colonies. As well the Hearst style of journalism is alive and well in our modern era.