monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

There is Baldimo, layman, guijohn, Mcgentrix, ... "continually rais[ing] subject[s] that no one else wants to discuss" but I don't hear you, georgeob1 or blatham for that matter, complaining about them.

You and every other person, including blatham and georgeob1, know that this, "there's already an active thread to discuss that very topic" is a total red herring. It is nothing more than a cowardly attempt by cowards to bury thee most important topic the cowards do not want to face.

You folks can go on for pages on the most inane, way off topic things, while you all seek to crush this one event that is the defining idea of this whole, overly voluble thread - which is a lot of gab, with little substance.

Well, I'm not trying to speak for everyone; I think for some people, the government narrative is simply a better story. Crazed jihadists seek vengeance on the Great Satan, kill thousands of USAmericans, and die in the act. USA goes to war in response. It's all very neat and tidy in terms of plot lines and outcomes.

But if we posit a controlled demolition, no matter how convincing the science, we're left very unsatisfied. There's no "who" or "why". Theories abound, the chain of causation becomes tortuous to follow, experts contradict each other, specialists argue over details, and in the end no one knows who's responsible or why it was done. The Pentagon? Flight 93? And the perpetrators, never identified, are never punished.

That describes some people's reticence to continue the discussion — it doesn't get them to anywhere that they want to be.

Personally, I've grown very skeptical of well-produced documentaries, peer-reviewed studies, and interviews with know-it-alls on the internet. If the page looks convincing, if the video is of professional quality, if the talking head sounds smart, it can paint a very realistic scenario. But without specialized knowledge of engineering and materials, without biographical details of the quoted experts, without a thorough understanding as to who produced the documentary and why, I might just as well be reading a novel or watching a movie. I lack the means to effectively analyze the evidence, verify the facts, or cross examine the presenter. It's simply too easy to concoct and spread misinformation these days and I choose not to get dragged into heated discourse over subjects where the facts are in dispute and the fifteen year old evidence is buried somewhere in a landfill.

you say things like "America first, baby!", which given some context, breaks down to, "Layman first, baby!"

You missed the point in both cases.

People will simply starve to death’: Why Trump’s plan to slash U.N. funding could lead to global calamity
The world is facing its “largest humanitarian crisis” since 1945, according to the United Nations.

I despise these people so much. They just do not give a damn.

those who flood the thread with pasted opinions and even offer reading assignments to others - all with a consistent bias and viewpoint, are not really engaging in a conversation: they are instead attempting to dominate and indoctrinate others while indulging some pedagogical delusions.

Quote:

‘People will simply starve to death’: Why Trump’s plan to slash U.N. funding could lead to global calamity
The world is facing its “largest humanitarian crisis” since 1945, according to the United Nations.

WP
I despise these people so much. They just do not give a damn.

The US has its huge clodhopper foot all over the ******* world. There's a national myth, held by some, that America deserves, in fact is morally obligated, to dominate everybody else and spread its goodness and superior wisdoms. I'm not on board.

That's all you are. A hate preacher.

I only wish conservatives made more effort to submit erudite pieces from a conservative point of view instead of just posting tiresome memes, forwarding fake news, and bitching about links.

Of course I may be in error in supposing that erudite sources of the conservative point of view actually exist.

"I have a confession: I have at times, as the war has unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong," Gary Kamiya, executive editor of the left-leaning Internet journal Salon, wrote last week. Wished for the Iraqis to be more nationalistic, to resist longer.”

“Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen. I'm not alone: A number of people who oppose the war have told me they have had identical feelings."

“Some of this is merely the result of pettiness -- ignoble resentment, partisan hackdom, the desire to be proved right and to prove the likes of Rumsfeld wrong, irritation with the sanitizing, myth-making American media...Pessimism is the dirty little secret of the antiwar camp -- dirty because there is something distasteful about wishing for bad outcomes.”

See that's the problem... when any kind of conservative point of view is given it just becomes an argument about the source and never the material.

Quote:

See that's the problem... when any kind of conservative point of view is given it just becomes an argument about the source and never the material.

Well, I was being facetious, as I know there are conservatives who have interesting things to say. If someone posts one I'll say so and if I find one I'll post it myself. But if I think a source comes up short or if the writing style is execrable I'll say that as well.

Mostly because the cheese eaters can't find any kind of discussion about a truth that doesn't villainize Trump or the US agreeable to their weak constitutions.

No longer published in The New York Review of Books and other prestigious liberal magazines that once clamored for his essays, Chomsky has become the Dr. Demento of American political commentary. But within the Left itself, Chomsky's reputation has prospered.

Chomsky once wrote me not one but two six-page single-spaced letters teeming with vituperation and insult in response to a mild and respectful criticism I had made of him in my 1979 article in The Nation. I must emphasize that in 1979 I still respected Noam Chomsky”

"These letters were, in fact, the first indication I had that Noam Chomsky was a nut case. Not just someone with whom I was beginning to have political disagreements, but a full-blown wack job."

“He is incapable of reasoned discussion. His reaction to even dispassionate criticism remains vituperation and denial. Consider only his recent non-responses to his long-time defender and friend Christopher Hitchens a man with whom I have profound disagreements but whom I eminently respect."

"In Noam Chomskys books one theme is constant: his portrayal of the state of Israel as the focus of evil in the Middle East, a malevolent outlaw whose only redeeming feature is the readiness of its own left-wing intelligentsia to expose its horrifying depravity."

"Every crime by Israels foes is portrayed as a regrettable but understandable lapse, a mere detour from the course of moderation which they pursue with such dedicated benevolence, in the midst of the infinite wickedness of the nation they are fighting to destroy."

“Samantha Power, in an otherwise sympathetic review of Hegemony or Survival (New York Times Book Review, January 2004), writes: "For Chomsky, the world is divided into oppressor and oppressed. America, the prime oppressor, can do no right, while the sins of those categorized as oppressed receive scant mention."

Back in 1924 they said so and so therefore their words are invalid.

"This is my first visit to Vietnam. Nevertheless, since the moment when we arrived at the airport at Hanoi, I've had a remarkable and very satisfying feeling of being entirely at home...

“The people of Vietnam will win, they must win, because your cause is the cause of humanity as it moves forward toward liberty and justice, toward the socialist society in which free, creative men control their own destiny.”

"We are deeply grateful to you that you permit us to be part of your brave and historical struggle....many Americans who wish you success and who detest with all of their being the hateful activities of the American government."

“Noam Chomsky, originally delivered on April 13, 1970 in Hanoi while he was visiting North Vietnam... Broadcast by Radio Hanoi on April 14

"I don’t accept the view that we can just condemn the NLF terror, period, because it was so horrible. There are real arguments also in favor of the Viet Cong terror, arguments that can't be lightly dismissed.”

"It was necessary to break the bonds of passivity that made them totally incapable of political action. And if violence does move the peasantry to the point where it can overcome bondage, then I think there's a pretty strong case for it."

If we are going to take a moral position on this, we have to ask both what the consequences were of using terror and not using terror.

“If it were true that the consequences of not using terror would be that the peasantry in Vietnam would continue to live in the state of the peasantry of the Philippines, then I think the use of terror would be justified.”