Thursday, December 22, 2016

Will Absolute Power Corrupt Trump And The Other One Percenters Absolutely?

Welcome friends!

I know I usually do a special holiday post this time of year but I’m hardly in the mood with darkness, ignorance, and ugliness on the ascendency everywhere in the world including my beloved homeland the USA.  My heart is just too heavy this year to do anything light and amusing.  Well, no more light and amusing than when I try to get all weighty and serious anyway.  Instead, I thought I’d take yet another whack at something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: the rather remarkable divergence in how many liberals and conservatives perceive the motley collection of inexperienced (in terms of national policy) billionaires and millionaires president-elect Trump has assembled to head up his administration.  To put things in a nutshell for those who haven’t been reading the papers recently (which I would understand well enough) Trump’s team raises all manner of red flags for many liberals but seems to be viewed as a welcome breath of fresh air by most conservatives.  I suppose it mirrors the reactions of the two camps to the roughly similar issue of the potential conflicts of interest of the One-Percent President himself.  Liberals are very concerned.  Conservatives can’t fathom why.  It got me thinking I should delve into the origin of this obviously quite fundamental difference in perspectives yet again.  Hey, anything worth saying once is worth saying twice or however many times I’ve said it now.  How many times did president-elect Trump lie about President Obama being unable to produce his birth certificate?  At least I’m sincerely trying to be truthful and helpful.

Being a lifelong liberal myself and probably typical of the breed in certain respects I suppose I can speak to that side of the issue so let’s just do a little overview of how things look from the first floor of my modest ivory house if one wants to think of it that way.  After that I’ll move on to the more challenging portion of the exercise and try to imagine how conservatives must see things.  Then I’ll wrap up with a few issue that make it very difficult or I suppose if I’m being honest pretty much impossible for me to fully understand the conservative perspective in the hope that some conservative might read it one day and explain it in print, in which case I can do the whole exercise again but presumably with a much improved take on the conservative perspective... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Trump's Secret Weapon: Baby Talk

Welcome friends!

I know I was supposed to stop talking about the clown now he’s elected at least until he actually has a chance to do something unfortunate so I suppose the week of January 20, which is alarmingly close so let’s enjoy the last few weeks of stability and sanity while it lasts.  However, I did want to just report on one positive turn of events because believe me right now any positive turn of events is something to be savored.  If you remember last time I was saying how much we all stand to lose if Trump actually delivers on any of his many and varied campaign promises.  We could see the elimination of a great deal of the progress we’ve made these past several years and in some cases decades on a great number of different fronts: global warming, the environment more generally, nuclear proliferation, women’s reproductive rights, equal rights for gay people, race relations, distributive concerns, the minimum wage, unions, the national debt, Wall Street regulations, attempts to reduce the influence of big money in politics, freedom of the press, etc.  I said if we’re lucky the man may have been just talking out of his ass during the campaign and now he’s gotten what he wanted, a platform to look after his own financial interests as well as the financial interests of his relatives and buddies in the one percent, perhaps he’ll conveniently forget all the ignorant and destructive bullshit he’s been peddling these past months.  (By looking after the financial interests of the one percent I’m talking about things like reducing their tax bill, doing away with the estate tax to facilitate the creation of family dynasties most likely consisting in the not so distant future of the usual spoiled and feckless layabouts no doubt in line from birth to become Republican presidents themselves, removing regulations designed to prevent them from dominating the political process, eliminating social programs designed for people who are not them, etc.) I suggested that might be our one ray of hope because the man did mention at one point during the campaign if he were elected president he intended to act more “presidential” and presumably not carry on the offensive and ignorant jackass persona he found so politically rewarding during the campaign.  I remarked on it at the time.  The signals are mixed but we may be getting some indication that yes, President Trump may be at least marginally saner than Candidate Clown.

Not sure what I’m talking about?  Maybe a few examples might help.  I saw an article a week or two ago that involved a meeting between the clown and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe... Sorry but only selected archived (previous year) posts are currently available full text on this website.  All posts including this one are available in my annual anthology ebook series available at the Amazon Kindle Bookstore for a nominal fee.  Hey, we all need to make a buck somehow, right?  If you find my timeless jewels of wisdom amusing or perhaps even amusingly irritating throw me a bone now and then.  Thank you my friends!