Tsar
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Post by Tsar on May 30, 2020 18:46:12 GMT
The Brexit thread brought up several different very interesting and important topics, and rather than make different threads, I thought I'd just make a single thread covering the rocky world of IR. I aim to make a number of posts laying out what I think on some topics and hopefully start some discussions.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on May 30, 2020 18:49:28 GMT
Donald TrumpI got off the Trump Train in April 2017 when he attacked Syria. What was so exciting about Candidate Trump is that (despite a few alarm bells) so much of what he proposed scared the establishment witless. Sadly, it was obvious when he filled his administration with neocon hawks that he'd turned his back on the promises that got him elected. He has attacked Syria, kept troops in all the countries they were already in, come close to war with Iran, vetoed a bill that would have ended American support for the horrific Saudi invasion of Yemen, been a massive toady for Saudi Arabia, and has not improved relations with Russia. He has made no progress on immigration, deportations are lower than they were under Obama, no border wall, NAFTA is still going (albeit renamed), had very little success on bringing back manufacturing, has done nothing to combat Big Tech censorship, nothing against the 'woke' agenda, nothing about the opioid crisis, and so on. He ran as a genuinely refreshing candidate but has governed like George Bush. He has done precious little positive and made things worse in many areas.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on May 30, 2020 18:51:54 GMT
2020 US elections
This election is boring and basically irrelevant. There's none of the electric, anti-establishment energy that surrounded Trump in 2016, because now he IS the establishment, and he represents everything that's wrong with DC - nepotism, hot air, and empty promises. And his opponent is a neoliberal warmonger who should be in retirement.
I couldn't care less who wins. It could go either way. Despite Biden's gaffes, he is polling very well; and the entrenched MAGA crowd will never abandon Trump. Whoever wins, it will be a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on May 30, 2020 19:33:18 GMT
I well remember how happy we were on the morning after the 2016 election when we learned that Hillary had lost. Maybe some of the old posts are worth recycling.
People made excuses for Trump for a while, but became very disillusioned. Perhaps he really is ill, as some people allege.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on May 30, 2020 23:54:28 GMT
He is an expert at using Twitter to act the tough guy, which helps keep his supporters onside; he is always dog-whistling and making edgy tweets. He won't actually do anything concrete for his supporters, though. He is much like Johnson in that regard - lots of bluster, no substance.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 1, 2020 13:21:15 GMT
From an aesthetic point of view, it is still very cool.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Jun 12, 2020 8:21:26 GMT
If what I have been reading is true, Donald Trump sees everything and everyone as part of some deep state conspiracy and an attempt to prevent his re-election.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 12, 2020 17:50:16 GMT
Trump doesn't believe that; he knows which side he's on. But he is a master manipulator and he knows what gets his base going, so he helps along the QAnon-type idea that he's playing some game of interdimensional 4D chess against the 'deep state'. The idea of Trump fighting the forces of evil in the shadows exists to goad people into voting Republican again. That's it. A 'deep state' psyop. He is their guy, which is why he's not only not improved the issues he campaigned on, but made most of them much worse. I get why the idea of a hidden saviour is appealing, but we have to look at actual tangible outcomes, and when looking at those, Trump has been worse than George Bush. WW3 would have kicked off in January had it not been for Tucker Carlson talking Trump out of escalating things with Iran. The whole world should be grateful to Tucker.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Jun 12, 2020 20:10:15 GMT
All this devious thinking and reverse psychology is very confusing. So Trump is not paranoid, he just wants people to think that there are conspiracies against him so he must be doing something right and 'they' are trying to destroy him? These things often backfire...
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 13, 2020 23:54:24 GMT
My view is that this QAnon, 'Trump vs the deep state' stuff is a Republican electioneering strategy targeting a specific group of people: those who are observant enough to see past the MAGA cheerleading squad and see that Trump's promises have been unfulfiled. How to keep those poor sods voting GOP? Put out theories about Trump being thwarted by the 'deep state'. Blame all the failures and bad stuff he's done on his advisors and Cabinet members (who Trump appointed in the first place!) and the Democrats. Imply that if he wins a second term, that's when he'll start doing what he promised to do in 2016. You'll see, just vote GOP and TRUST THE PLAN!!!
Another part of it is that it keeps people hooked into the party political partisan circus show, stopping them from fully embracing the reality that all major political parties are bought and paid for.
I wish it was all true, that Trump really is on our side, but as it says in the Bible, ye shall know them by their fruits, and Trump's fruits are rotten. It seems far more likely to me that he's just another cog in the neoliberal machine, rather than some 200 IQ genius playing a highly advanced tactical game that's going to bring the system to its knees (whilst simultaneously doing everything his bosses want).
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 18, 2020 18:05:16 GMT
China-India border skirmishwww.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53061476Both sides accuse the other of being at fault for this incident. Who knows what really happened. This border has always been volatile; China and India fought a war in 1962, which China won. Thankfully, I don't see a war coming out of this incident. Both sides are talking about the importance of deescalation, which is positive, and in any case, these are both nuclear powers - nuclear symmetry reduces the risk of war between two nations. It's in no one's interest to escalate. Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi aren't madmen, whatever else people might think of them. I will have to make a proper post about the China-India-Pakistan dynamic at some point, as it's very interesting. As is the effect of nuclear weapons on conflict resolution.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 23, 2020 21:40:36 GMT
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 23, 2020 21:43:40 GMT
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aletheia
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Post by aletheia on Jun 29, 2020 19:09:20 GMT
Trump doesn't believe that; he knows which side he's on. But he is a master manipulator and he knows what gets his base going, so he helps along the QAnon-type idea that he's playing some game of interdimensional 4D chess against the 'deep state'. The idea of Trump fighting the forces of evil in the shadows exists to goad people into voting Republican again. That's it. A 'deep state' psyop. He is their guy, which is why he's not only not improved the issues he campaigned on, but made most of them much worse. I get why the idea of a hidden saviour is appealing, but we have to look at actual tangible outcomes, and when looking at those, Trump has been worse than George Bush. WW3 would have kicked off in January had it not been for Tucker Carlson talking Trump out of escalating things with Iran. The whole world should be grateful to Tucker. I agree with many of Tucker Carlson's views but I can't help remembering his view on scepticism of the Official Version of Events of 9/11, in which he said that it is some form of blasphemy to suggest that the United States government could be responsible for murdering 3,000 of its own citizens.
Of course, this was some years ago and his views may have changed since then. I don't think he addresses the topic much these days.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 29, 2020 21:22:15 GMT
I don't endorse or agree with everything Tucker says, but he's the only person on television in the Anglosphere telling the truth, which he does to an audience of millions. The big Swede is doing Óðinn's work.
Of course, he can't tell the whole truth on that platform, but he's great at walking right up to the line and stopping just short of it, whilst still getting people asking the right questions. His sponsors have started to pull out from his show because he tells the truth and I can see him losing his show altogether soon, which will be a terrible shame.
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aletheia
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Post by aletheia on Jun 29, 2020 21:33:51 GMT
He's certainly right to be calling Trump into question with the weakness that has come to the fore since the coronavirus outbreak and civil unrest.
It would be a shame if he lost his show and it may be a good idea to archive his videos from YouTube. I can see him being censored of there too if he tried to start his own channel / podcast.
Many more people promoting alt-tech sites like Bitchute and Parler but I wonder how many of these new platforms are really trustworthy. Everything seems so cornered and boxed in now.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jun 29, 2020 21:49:53 GMT
My main issue with Tucker is his support for the dotard. He'll criticise him (which the cheerleading squad on Fox won't do), but in the end he'll always tell people to vote for him. Really annoying.
Bitchute I think is fine, albeit a badly designed mess with an awful search function. Parler stinks; I don't trust it one bit. A site that literally came out of nowhere and had Republican senators and congressmen advocating it? Something seems off with that.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Jun 30, 2020 8:05:20 GMT
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aletheia
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Post by aletheia on Jun 30, 2020 8:39:16 GMT
My main issue with Tucker is his support for the dotard. He'll criticise him (which the cheerleading squad on Fox won't do), but in the end he'll always tell people to vote for him. Really annoying. Bitchute I think is fine, albeit a badly designed mess with an awful search function. Parler stinks; I don't trust it one bit. A site that literally came out of nowhere and had Republican senators and congressmen advocating it? Something seems off with that. Parler has grown way too fast and is being mentioned in mainstream sources frequently. I may have just missed it but I've never seen a reference to BitChute in any mainstream media, so it's got that going for it.
The interface on Parler is poor and it just seems like an inferior version of Twitter.
The 'liberal' talking heads know about Parler and have actually started joining (and claim that they are being banned). I wonder if Parler has been set up to eventually replace Twitter: an awful lot of verified accounts are on there already.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Jul 5, 2020 22:08:31 GMT
Thank you, kind moderator.
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Avacyn
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Post by Avacyn on Jul 19, 2020 19:03:14 GMT
This is quite the thread I have stumbled on to...
The thing to consider about Trump launching the missiles in Syria, 2017... He was slamming the side of a mountain. When you look at the whole operation, it was shambolic, in the sense of slapping around Assad's regime. However, if what he was doing (as I believe) he was using it as a pretence to take out ISIS forces... then it makes a whole lot more sense.
Also, when you look at the state of ISIS today, it is a pitiful force. American troops have been steadily pulling out, too. Not only that, but Trump has not started any new wars. There is greater stability today than there was in 2016.
The border wall has been a work in progress. I've seen the footage of the work over the years, and in a number of places, existing wall has been replaced. Some of it was rusting and pathetic, some were just anti vehicle barriers. What exists now is far, far better. Tall, can observe activity for miles around, and painted black, so people cannot try and climb it in the day. The border wall is important to stop trafficking, both drugs and human, gun running (Mexican drug cartels buy illegal weapons in America, then smuggle them into Mexico,) And who knows what else.
People love to say Trump has done nothing, but fail to look closer. he has appointed more Federal Judges in his time than other presidents do during two full terms. He has appointed two Supreme Court Justices, and with Ruth Bader Ginsberg in hospital (yet again,) with cancer (yet again,) the question of a third isn't unrealistic. Moreover, The Southern District of New York just had clear blocks removed, with Deep State operatives being fired. And what happened as soon as it occurred? Ghislaine Maxwell is arrested. She most likely was part of sting operation this whole time.
Also, DACA is heating up. He likely is going to undo it, in due course.
There is quite a bit of progress going on, it just isn't immediately obvious.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Jul 19, 2020 20:02:16 GMT
The Crying Game and the Blame Game Tsar you said that Donald Trump blames his advisers. He is not the only one. This is from the old forum, at the time of the surprising result of the 2016 US presidential election. We found the crying Democrats amusing rather than pitiful! Will we see articles such as this featuring Donald Trump in November? “After learning about her shocking loss to President-elect Donald Trump, Clinton reportedly 'couldn't stop crying. Best-selling conservative author Ed Klein told Newsmax TV that once the former first lady learned she had really lost to Trump, she called one of her friends crying. 'About 6:30 this morning she called an old friend,' he said while appearing on 'The Steve Malzberg Show' on Wednesday. 'She was crying, inconsolably. She couldn't stop crying.'Her friend said — her female friend from way, way, back — said that it was even hard to understand what she was saying, she was crying so hard. 'This is Hillary we're talking about.' Klein did not reveal who her longtime female friend was during the interview, but he also revealed Clinton apparently blamed FBI Director James Comey for her stunning loss. 'Eventually her friend said she could make out that she was blaming James Comey, the director of the FBI, for her loss — and this I don't understand exactly — and the president of the United States for not doing enough,' Klein stated.“ Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3929048/She-couldn-t-stop-crying-Hillary-Clinton-inconsolable-losing-election-Donald-Trump.html#ixzz4Pm4nvFft
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Sept 13, 2020 22:37:49 GMT
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Sept 14, 2020 7:10:50 GMT
I remember the Stop the War protest in London in February 2003 - I was part of it. It was the biggest demonstration that London had ever seen, and there were similar protests worldwide. They had no effect of course.
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Sept 25, 2020 0:06:01 GMT
I remember the Stop the War protest in London in February 2003 - I was part of it. It was the biggest demonstration that London had ever seen, and there were similar protests worldwide. They had no effect of course. I've got vague memories of seeing the early stages of the Iraq War on the news, but was far too young to understand what any of it meant. 9/11 changed the world and its terrible consequences will still be being felt decades from now. I know plenty of people around my age (Millennial / Gen Z borderline) who nostalgise over the late 1990s and early 2000s, but they really were an awful time. Comparatively better than now, sure, but wanting to turn the clock back to 2000 is like a cancer patient longing for the "good old days" when their cancer was only stage 1. This is part of the problem with the conservative 'movement', actually. Having an idealised, rose-tinted view of the recent past and thinking if we can just return to how things were in [choose your 20th century decade], everything will be great. Well, even if we could turn the clock back, we'd just be at this point again in a few decades, because all of the trends and attitudes that lead to where we are now were well established in the (for example) 1960s; we're just further down the road now. Still, it's equally funny and sad to think that in a decade or so, young people will be waxing lyrical about what a wholesome time 2019 was!
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Oct 30, 2020 19:17:31 GMT
Will it be Donald Trump on November 3rd?
The developments have mostly passed me by, but I get the impression that despite all the disillusionment since 2016 Donald Trump is in the lead. I can't see Kanye West winning at the polls. This picture was inspiring last time:
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Tsar
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Post by Tsar on Nov 7, 2020 23:01:30 GMT
So Biden's done it. Not a surprise, the writing has been on the wall for months. Trump did well to make it close, though - albeit with the aid of a fudged Democrat campaign.
I have had different visceral reactions to the result: a small part of my heart is still stuck in 2016, and the smug neolib celebration is nauseating already.
The numbers are interesting. Very interestingly, Trump lost a significant amount of white support but gained VERY significant Hispanic support, without which he would never have won Florida.
And Ohio is no longer the bellwether!
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Nov 8, 2020 8:37:14 GMT
"...a small part of my heart is still stuck in 2016, and the smug neolib celebration is nauseating already."
I well remember how amusing we found their disbelief and tears last time. I have not kept up with developments this time around; I always expected that Donald Trump would win again.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Nov 8, 2020 19:12:00 GMT
Inside the White House today
I can well believe that the atmosphere is not good: “Insiders described the atmosphere inside the West Wing as 'manic, exuberant, energised and toxic', with some staff lighting rose-scented candles in an attempt to soften the environment – and to combat the smell of fast-food delivered to the President and his inner circle... Some commentators have likened the situation to the Berlin bunker scene in the movie Downfall, in which an increasingly manic Adolf Hitler rages against his most trusted generals who dare not tell him the Nazis have lost the Second World War.” www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8924935/Donald-Trump-plans-avoid-Joe-Bidens-inauguration-January.htmlHow the mighty have fallen. His supporters' hopes were very high four years ago. Maybe some of them still hope that he will find proof of electoral fraud.
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