monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

georgeob1 wrote:

Debra Law wrote:

The dilemma of "dark money" plagues our politics, our economy, and our environment. It has for a very long time.

Corporations and other business entities are artificial beings. They are born with a stroke of a pen and have no conscience. They are not real persons, but have been granted the rights of real persons. In fact, they have been granted greater rights and they are in control. Is resistance futile?

Bernie Sanders' campaign has given us a glimmer of hope. Perhaps we can dismantle the "dark money" control of our government and our welfare and, ultimately, our survival. Maybe not.

Precisely the same statements could be made about Labor Unions and the many other NGOs that actively support Democrtats. (Moreover Labor unions operate generally under government enforced monopolys. Businesses don't.)

Odd that you didn't include them.

Your response was predictable. Some corporate trolls are deliberate and serve their corporate masters in exchange for money and other trolls do so simply because they fulfill the role of useful idiot.

Labor unions are evil! We got your corporate message: Workers of America, do not unite. Do not seek out better working conditions. Do not seek out a larger share of American wealth. You should struggle quietly alone. Do not unite! Unions of people are evil!!!

Your message has been delivered. But the question remains: What category of corporate troll do you occupy, Georgeob1?

Did you predict it? No evidence of that. What is a "corporate troll" ? Are you a legal troll?

I have managed companies with large numbers on union employees, both construction trades and metal trades. I have negotiated several collective bargaining agreements and many formal disputes with the Steelworkers and other unions.

Work place safety is now a matter of law vigorously enforced both by government and insurance companies. That and the compensation & benefit issues that were once the unique contribution unions made in our economic & social history. Now they are part of the general fabric of our lives. Unions have degenerated to Mafia like protection rackets that feed off the public interest. Wherever workers have a real voice in union membership they quickly die (as was amply demonstrated in Wisconsin a couple of years ago). Unions are fast dissappearing from the private sector and thrive only in State and Federal government where workers are organized by government fiat, without their consent.

Unions have degenerated to Mafia like protection rackets that feed off the public interest.

It is the ways in which he will not be like any past president that pose all the problems. The violation of norms, the pretense of separating his business from his office, the rejection of transparency regarding his finances, the constant attacks on the press and media, the disinterest in policy along with the obsessions with image and reputation, the urge to bully and insult, and the daily lies are exactly the sorts of characteristics and behaviors one does not want in someone holding the Presidency.

I really do not know if America's institutions will be able to withstand the damage this guy and those who serve him will do.

They seemed to survive 8 years of Obama just fine.

At one point, for example, the president-elect said he wants recognition for having effectively been a freelance tech consultant during the presidential campaign: "We were told that they were trying to hack [Republicans], but they weren't able to hack. And I think I get some credit because I told Reince, and Reince did a phenomenal job, but I said I want strong hacking defense [on RNC computers]."

The idea that Trump actually gave the RNC advice about cyber-security is very hard to believe, but what struck me as significant about this throwaway line is the president-elect's preoccupation with self-aggrandizing claims.

Georgeob1: Your modus operandi is never to respond to the actual substance of another member's post. Your modus operandi is diversion. If the topic is Trump, your standard response is ".... but, but, the Cintons". We've discussed this before.

The topic now is "dark money" and its corruption of both the Democratic and Republican political parties. Your response was ".... but, but, labor unions."

Your corporate trollish response was predictable. Diversion and false equivalencies and other logical fallacies that all carry the same message: Democrats bad. Liberals bad.

Your goal is to be divisive, which is detrimental to the vast majority of the people and beneficial to the small minority and those who make money and/or get elected by catering to the them.

I am aware of your modus operandi. Divide and conquer tactics might not work as well as you believe. After all, more and more people are becoming aware that the accumulation of vast wealth and power in the hands of a few causes grave harm to the many.

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump

Donald Trump’s first press conference since the summer was a surreal exercise in the assertion of immunity from accountability. He either ignored questions about his behavior, or dismissed the questions as illegitimate. He painted a chilling depiction of politics not as an ongoing process but as a one-time event, settled in his favor by the presidential campaign, once and for all.

...It is abnormal, to say the least, for a president-elect to defend his behavior by pivoting to a contrast with the candidate he defeated. But invoking Clinton served a purpose that became clear as the press conference drew on. It defined any question he disapproved of as a challenge to his legitimacy, and thus a campaign matter, and thus by definition moot. Asked about Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to introduce tougher sanctions on Russia, Trump harkened back to the campaign as well. “Lindsey Graham — I’ve been competing with him for a long time,” he said, “He is going to crack that 1 percent barrier one day. I didn’t realize Lindsey Graham is still at it.” Graham, of course, is not “still at it.” He is governing, not running against Trump. But to Trump, any action that might challenge him is indistinguishable from a contest for power.

Perhaps most telling of all, Trump insisted that the election validated for all time his refusal to disclose his tax returns, the only way to substantiate his claims not to have any business with Russia: “The only one that cares about my tax returns are the reporters. They’re the only ones. But no, I don’t think so. I won — I mean, I became president — no, I don’t think they care at all. I don’t think they care at all.” Likewise, the people don’t care about his precedent-smashing plans to maintain ownership of his business in an un-blind trust. Selling off the Trump business, his lawyer came on to explain, would expose the president to “unreasonable losses.”

This is how an authoritarian thinks. It's how one acts.

A coalition of 25 military and national security experts, including former advisers to Ronald Reagan and George W Bush, has warned that climate change poses a “significant risk to US national security and international security” that requires more attention from the US federal government.

The prominent members of the US national security community warned that warming temperatures and rising seas will increasingly inundate military bases and fuel international conflict and mass migration, leading to “significant and direct risks to US military readiness, operations and strategy”.

You weren't bothered by Obama saying “I will Fundamentally Transform America.”

My father was at a film editors union meeting the night I was born.
Instead of berating him when I grew up, I completely understand. No, I doubt that was a straight out choice between occurrences.

I think you are confusing Trump's blunt, direct manner with real authoritarianism. Obama was a real authoritarian who was sure he knew how we should think and act, and presumed to direct us accordingly.