2017.04.21
14:20
Sometime last week the tremendous bulk of analysis of President Thump's words and actions annoyed me to the point of wanting to vent here. Not just the analysis and coverage of the legacy media, which I manage to tune out 99% of their ravings, but thoughts and considerations of sensible, thinking souls I have the pleasure of reading on the internet.
People will be well served to remember exactly who and what Thump is, and discard ideas about who and what he is not. His essential nature is crystal clear to anyone who has suffered his near constant media presence in New York City for four decades, and the absolutely consistent nature of his behavior.
I. Thump Is
A conman and a bullshitter, who believes in absolutely nothing save one simple thing. He says anything that strikes his pea brain at any given moment. As well, he says anything that he thinks (at any given moment) will either move the deal which is immediately in front of him toward closure, or he says anything he thinks will forward the one and only simple thing in which he invests belief. That is the bullshitter part. Fully on display with his frequent contradictory statements. Sadly, by virtue of his office, those statements now carry the weight of potential national policy. Until they are contradicted.
The one simple thing he believes in is bringing wealth and fame/immediate attention to himself. That is it, nothing more or less. To a very limited degree he exhibits some love and devotion to his family, and I hesitate to speak to the intimate family life of any famous person whom I have no personal knowledge. OK, hesitation period over. His family seem mere appendages put to use to bolster and promote that prime directive, more attention and more money. He pretty much has said as much regarding the wives/women in his life. The absence of black sheep daughter Tiffany supports this view.
A bullshitter who cares for nothing other than self-aggrandizement, monetary and attention. Those looking for more in this man's character or for more complex causes for his policy actions will find no there there. He has fucked over nearly everyone he has ever done business with (most recently Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon), he has not hesitated in fucking over the voting demographic that gave him the Electoral College victory, and he will without compunction fuck over the entire country.
I feel a little bit silly even bothering to type this, as it is so simple and obvious what this man is. I do it because so many people seem to forget these simple, obvious descriptions of Thump, or otherwise discount or cast them aside.
II. What Will He Do Next
Trying to predict the exact steps Thump will take, as far as grand policy or regarding a specific issue (such as the Syrian conflict) is next to impossible. The end result of his actions as President are very easy to anticipate. Failure. Clusterfuck. i.e. repeal of Obamacare. i.e. Tax Reform with some semblance of increased fairness. i.e. The Wall and Make Mexico pay for it. i.e. announce on a Sunday that removing Assad is no longer a policy; until Thursday at least. i.e. Muslim travel ban. We will have to wait to see the pathways unfold, but we will get there, guaranteed.
There are two slightly specific paths we can anticipate with confidence. First is accelerating the ongoing theft and transfer of wealth to the very few, the class that Thump identifies with. All those Goldman and other wall street/corporate execs he appointed make this another obvious tell.
Second is, he will repeat actions that are successful in pushing the prime directive, attention/fame. In response to an obvious false gas attack scenario, (so obvious I cannot at this point conclude he is unaware that Assad did not do this, otoh I can't be surprised if he was fooled by this ruse) he launched a cruise missile attack on Syria, killing ~ 14 people, including children in the town next to the target.
Many voices in the media who had been consistent critics of Thump, all of a sudden fawned over his decicivenes, his 'presidential' behavior of stupidly killing some brown people and supporting the ISIS/Al Qaada cause in Syria. Media heads who expressed scorn and derision now complement him on TV.
This is as simple as Pavlov's bell. Positive reinforcement of war and killing. He will absolutely do it again.
I am going to hammer the most important theme in understanding what is going on in the nation and the world today, because it is a truth that is difficult to swallow. But the cheerleading for war is the foremost example of this truth. Out country is deeply sick. We are existentially messed up as a nation, and our political system is a clear demonstration of the fact. Once more:
How shit of a country do you have to be, to elect That as your president?
III. Eight Years Later, Another Treat
I want to publicly admit a character defect, which is not a surprise to those who know me. I am not proud of this flaw, and I am ashamed that I find myself reveling in this foible. But, dammit, reveling in my abandon is what I am doing.
I am thoroughly delighted by this tell-all book from inside the Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton failed campaign. I haven't read it, I've been enjoying the many published reviews which I presume have covered all the good stuff. Even the bad reviews that persist in the myths and lies that excuse HDCR and her terrible campaign, that persist in blaming phantoms and other people for her loss, blaming everything and anything other than the terrible candidate. The NY Times was an unintentionally hilarious example.
Eight years ago, Clinton similarly let the presidency slip from her seemingly inevitable grasp, when she was not as bad a candidate as she was this go-round (didn't have her horrific record as warmongering SecState, didn't have her self-inflicted illegal email server story). Stories of her paranoid, backstabbing, dysfunctional internal campaign told in these book reviews this week are echoes of similar stories after she blew the nomination to an unknown rookie senator. There were similar published account of that failed campaign. In 2008 she/they didn't listen to husband Bubba, who for his myriad flaws, he has proven to know how to win an election. She repeated this error, as well as many others, in this campaign.
Yeah, my glee is unsightly, and I will try to be a better person and let go this particular flavor of schadenfreude, and channel it into Dodger Baseball (although that may have to be delayed a couple of seasons, damn they are loaded). But in very unequal measure to my abhorrence of President Thump and the national 'leadership' he represents, yeah I get significant pleasure in the fact that Clinton is not president.
Oh, and those who want to smear me with the fact that Thump is a developing disaster and the assumption that the downward spiral of our once great nation would've been arrested by President Clinton 45, you can pick up your Fuck You from the big pile over there. Just as soon as the line of people who directly blame me for Thump because I refused to vote for either of these horrible human beings that this completely corrupted and failed system tried to shove down my throat. Don't worry, I won't run out; no need to push.
Again, and you are gonna hear this from me over and over: this nation was moving in a good direction, in terms of peace, economic fairness and opportunity, environmental wisdom and conservation, as of November 2016, and suddenly flipped a 180˚ turn because Thump. We've been going wrong for years, even decades; we continue regardless which of these assholes squats in the Oval Office. Because, Clinton's motive for being president is pretty much the same as Thump's - self-aggrandizement. Yeah, Clinton has a bit of substance at her core, while Thump is devoid of anything else in his psyche. While I hate what Thump is doing to the country, I've never much cared about him one way or another. In contrast, I think that is why I hate her so, because there is a much more highly functioning brain and probably some significant positive ethical concerns deep inside.
She should know better, or care, and she just doesn't. What drives her is pretty much the same, as Thump, the same as all the rest of them.
This one was fun, Taibbi. Yikes! New Behind-the-Scenes Book Brutalizes the Clinton Campaign
IV. War With Korea
Really fucking stupid. So unimaginably stupid.
Without going into detail, and I am still educating myself on the particulars, the DPRK has a big army, a shitload of artillery, a bunch of missiles, tens of thousands of special forces soldiers capable of quickly infiltrating the south, more tanks and submarines than even we possess in our arsenal. They can and very likely will really fuck up one of the most populous cities on earth, Seoul (25 million in the metro), which lies ~35 miles from the border. A city with factories and corporate headquarters of some of the biggest corporate household names (Samsung, LG, Hyundai, Kia). And if some of those land or submarine based missiles can reach Japan, about 700 miles away.
With conventional weapons, DPNK could kill literally hundreds of thousands of people within the first hour of war. Oh, they have a few small nukes, and while they are very unlikely to be able to launch one on a missile (miniaturization is a problem they have probably not overcome), a barge or a truck, or even a submarine can get a nuke to the neighborhood.
The 'madman' in North Korea holds a high value hostage in Seoul, and a credible threat of another in Japan. Like in your run of the mill police standoff, when the cops storm the hostages usually get smoked. Any fantasy that the US military could quickly neutralize the DPRK capacity for mass death has been dispelled by war games, repeatedly. And defies logic.
Plus, the last time the US army marched across North Korea, the PRC exercised a veto, in the form of a million-man army. That fought the US army. And won, pushing US forces southward to the starting line. I don't think the current PRC is likely to tolerate a large American army on it's border. And while I have Google Maps open, the Russian eastern naval fleet, stationed at Vladivostok, a mere 100 miles from the Korean peninsula. They may have some views on American military presence in large numbers so close to their navy.
But the 'logic' that a country cannot/must not possess nuclear weapons without US approval is patently ridiculous. A nuclear deterrent is the only practical defense against a larger, powerful nation that has a penchant for invasion, 'regime change' and destruction.
Back in the days following 9/11, dubya named DPRK as part of the axis of evil. For the next couple of years, there was a lot of talk about regime change and war. But the US picked Iraq as the first target, relying on rhetoric and financial sanctions to punish the other countries. Then, in 2006, DPRK exploded a nuke. Subsequently, while the US continued to yammer about other countries, eventually making war with Libya and Syria, yammering about North Korea quieted. Well, until this fucking genius.
Too bad Libya had given up it's nuclear program. And Syria had theirs bombed by the Israelis. With a nuke or two, the US may have left them the fuck alone.
Nuclear weaponry is 70 year old technology. Peaceful attempts to prevent proliferation, negotiation, bribery, alliances, all make tremendous sense. War of the powerful against the weak is stupid as well as morally indefensible, as such war demonstrate the logic of obtaining nukes for deterrent purposes. Sorry, another sad truth. Missiles are 80 yo technology, and launching a war to prevent development of that particular weaponry is another step deeper in stupid.
Stupid and deadly. I fervently wish this is just talk and posturing, but history tells us of repeated stupidity and mass death. In the great 'what if' game, I will concede that a President Clinton 45 would not be so stupid as to make war on Korea (she'd at least be too busy with full-out war in Syria). Otoh, it would be nice to hear her, or some other leading politicians, dem or gop, speak loudly about this stupid. Nope, love war way too much. I fervently wish we don't start a war in Korea, but I sure won't be surprised that our stupidity is limited.
