Donald Trump, the road that might not lead to the White House!

[littlebabyjesus]

Past their prime though.

What's prime? 27? That's divisible by 3 and 9, though. 29 maybe.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

yeah its all downhill from now on. 10 years ago I hoped to live long enough to see the revolution. Now I'll settle for the first mars manned mission

#old

I can pinpoint almost to the day the first time I felt my aging process. I was 37. I remember distinctly the thought - oh, that's different, that's aging that is.

 

[brogdale]

I'm currently making my way through brogdale favourite Streeck's 'How will capitalism end?' and this particular bit is really prescient (taken from the twitter account of someone else who thought the passage was interesting)



Is this the period we are now entering?

In it up to our necks, I'd say!

Funnily enough I heard Streeck speak just a few hours before the US Presidential results started to emerge and, like most of us, he made clear that he thought HRC would win. I'd imagine that the (surprise?) outcome would only serve to reinforce his belief in the multi-morbidity of capitalism.

What struck me particularly whilst reading How will capitalism end? were the sections about Oligarchic rule/Plutocracy. As one of the '5 disorders' Streeck was still in the mind-set that the oligarchs were content to out-source their wealth-defence to "professional politicians". I'd be very interested to hear what he makes of the oligarchic 'insurgency' against the politicians in the ultimate wealth repository, represented by the Trump ascendancy.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

To people like us it is.

It's all relative, of course. 20 year olds consider themselves grown-up. 15 year olds figure they know everything. They're right - in a way: they know more than they ever knew; and the 20 year old has never been older.

But the 30 year old realizes that they now know more than they did at 15; they have gained more life experience, and have had longer to reflect on things.

30 year olds shouldn't be surprised to find out that that process of learning, experiencing, and reflecting, will continue, even after 30.

 

[J Ed]

In it up to our necks, I'd say!

Funnily enough I heard Streeck speak just a few hours before the US Presidential results started to emerge and, like most of us, he made clear that he thought HRC would win. I'd imagine that the (surprise?) outcome would only serve to reinforce his belief in the multi-morbidity of capitalism.

What struck me particularly whilst reading How will capitalism end? were the sections about Oligarchic rule/Plutocracy. As one of the '5 disorders' Streeck was still in the mind-set that the oligarchs were content to out-source their wealth-defence to "professional politicians". I'd be very interested to hear what he makes of the oligarchic 'insurgency' against the politicians in the ultimate wealth repository, represented by the Trump ascendancy.

I wonder whether Streeck's thoughts were the same as mine on this, basically that all of what seems to be coming now was coming, but we had 4 to 8 years of Clinton first.

 

[J Ed]

Something resembling good news, of course it's not enough.

Registry used to track Arabs and Muslims dismantled by Obama administration

he Obama administration is dismantling a discriminatory surveillance system that was used after 9/11 to keep tabs on Arabs and Muslims across the US, in a move that will make it more difficult for president-elect Donald Trump to achieve his goal of introducing a Muslim registry.

 

[CRI]

Paywalled

Sorry about that. Mine wasn't blocked for some reason and I haven't paid.

Here's an alternative piece from the BBC on Navarro.

 

[ska invita]

...BTW at the end of the interview PV references a book called Friendly Fascism which Ive heard getting mentioned three times now this week, written in the 80s and setting out a model for a contemporary version of US fascism - fans of the book feel Gross predicted post 9-11 Bush and now Trump to a tee. Sounds interesting - out of print at the moment I think, but I expect with all this talk it'll be getting republished before too long. Sounds like it would be of use in the conversations going on about 'is Trump a fascist or not'. There are some quite thorough reviews of it out there that cover the general gist.

Sure enough, its getting a reprint: Homepage | Black Rose Books

 

[butchersapron]

The book wasn't a model of contemporary US fascism but a quite crude analysis of some the current elements present in some aspects of US society/economy/political culture that might develop a long long time in the future into some weird non fascist fascism. It was quite explicit in arguing that the US was not fascist and was not on the verge of fascism.

 

[CRI]

Trump team asked State Department for info on women’s issues programs, sparking fears of another witch hunt

 

[butchersapron]

I'm currently making my way through brogdale favourite Streeck's 'How will capitalism end?' and this particular bit is really prescient (taken from the twitter account of someone else who thought the passage was interesting)



Is this the period we are now entering?

Go on

well I guess not having read his book it's difficult to say much about it. I don't know why he thinks his concept of an interregnum constitutes a non capitalist system or why he thinks we are in the final crisis of capitalism when e.g. the Great Depression wasn't. I'm suspicious about how he would define capitalism and dubious about predictions of its immanent end. I bet there's been a fair number of those throughout its history.

In the quotes he doesn't seem to describe a break with capitalism in a way I'd recognise. And I wonder if it's not a bit Western-centric (or post-war Western centric maybe) to view absence/failure of institutions, difficulty of governance, instability/insecurity as representing the end of the system, instead of something that in various places and times is quite normal. Maybe it's all argued and explained convincingly in the book, but as it is I don't see much reason to think the end has arrived.

There's a very interesting very detailed and rather ungenerous review of the book in the latest LRB by the excellent Adam Tooze. The book centres around what Tooze (and Habermas and others) have identified as an unquestioning approach to the nation state in this collection and what this could potentially mean in contemporary conditions if Streeck's views gain wider traction in europe - esp Germany. I think he may be onto something about how Streeck relates to what should be done? rather than what has happened and why? and Tooze hints near the start that it may well be to Streecks long career in mainstream socio-eocnomics and membership of the SPD that's behind it.

It's sub only but i'll find a way to link to or post it if there's any interest. Tooze is a great reviewer.

 

[redsquirrel]

It's sub only but i'll find a way to link to or post it if there's any interest. Tooze is a great reviewer.

I'd certainly be interested

 

[brogdale]

There's a very interesting very detailed and rather ungenerous review of the book in the latest LRB by the excellent Adam Tooze. The book centres around what Tooze (and Habermas and others) have identified as an unquestioning approach to the nation state in this collection and what this could potentially mean in contemporary conditions if Streeck's views gain wider traction in europe - esp Germany. I think he may be onto something about how Streeck relates to what should be done? rather than what has happened and why? and Tooze hints near the start that it may well be to Streecks long career in mainstream socio-eocnomics and membership of the SPD.

It's sub only but i'll find a way to link to or post it if there's any interest. Tooze is a great reviewer.

Streeck is very upfront about his positive analysis of the demise of capitalism, and is explicit about not offering a view on what is to be done. He specifically predicts the collapse without the need of any agency or replacement system. Worthy of critique, but self-aware.

 

[butchersapron]

Streeck is very upfront about his positive analysis of the demise of capitalism, and is explicit about not offering a view on what is to be done. He specifically predicts the collapse without the need of any agency or replacement system. Worthy of critique, but self-aware.

Tooze's view is that a return to the strong nation-state is Streeck's what is to be done even if not as explicitly argued as other more obviously political approaches/works.

I'l make a pdf and bung it up in a sec.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Bill O’Reilly doesn’t want the Electoral College – or the disproportionate power it brings rural, white voters – to disappear.

In a two-and-a-half minute introduction to the segment, the conservative Fox News anchor threw his support behind the system, insisting its survival was necessary to ensure that voters in predominantly rural states are not overrun by a growing population of minorities in city centers.

The Electoral College does place an emphasis on votes from those in rural, and generally white, areas, allowing a vote cast in Wyoming, for example, to have 3.6 times the influence of one cast in California.

Bill O'Reilly's praises Electoral College for upholding 'white establishment'

 

[butchersapron]

A General Logic of Crisis - Adam Tooze

 

[brogdale]

Tooze's view is that a return to the strong nation-state is Streeck's what is to be done even if not as explicitly argued as other more obviously political approaches/works.

I'l make a pdf and bung it up in a sec.

Sounds like he might be basing that on Streeck's final conclusion in Buying Time?

“If, for the foreseeable future, the historically developed differences among European nations are too great to be integrated into a common democracy, then the institutions representing those differences may possibly, as a second-best solution, be used as a stumbling block on the downhill slope into a single market state purged of democracy. And so long as the best is no solution, the second-best is the best.”

​

 

[redsquirrel]

A General Logic of Crisis - Adam Tooze

Ta

 

[butchersapron]

Sounds like he might be basing that on Streeck's final conclusion in Buying Time?

​

I think - reading bewteen the lines - he's been spooked by brexit and so on.

 

[brogdale]

I think - reading bewteen the lines - he's been spooked by brexit and so on.

I'll read Tooze.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday called for the United States to expand its nuclear arsenal, after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country’s nuclear potential needs fortifying, in what would reverse decades of efforts to reduce the number and size of the two countries’ nuclear weapons.

In a tweet that offered no details, Trump said, “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

Donald Trump says he wants to ‘greatly strengthen and expand’ U.S. nuclear capability, a radical break from U.S. foreign policy

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Yep, more nukes for both sides. That's definitely what the word needs

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Republicans are planning on turning back the clock on gay rights once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.




The so-called First Amendment Defense Act, or FADA, “prohibits the federal government from taking discriminatory action against a person on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that: (1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.”

In other words, you can discriminate, but you have to say that you’re discriminating because your religion wants you to.

GOP’s next battle against gay rights : Proposed First Amendment Defense Act will use “religious freedom” to legalize discrimination

 

[Casually Red]

30 is very young.

Old enough to have a family almost raised if you weren't planning on having some abortions so you could write about them in a blog for your own authenticities sake .

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Thanks, Donald:

“Just go back wherever the f*ck you came from,” she said before turning to the cashier. “Hey!” she said. “Tell ’em to go back where they belong. You know, they come here to live and they act like they’re everybody else. Get in the back of the line like everybody else does.”

“You’re a nobody,” she went on. “Just because you come from another country, it don’t make you nobody! Nobody, as far as I’m concerned. You’re probably on welfare, the taxpayers probably paid for all that stuff.”

The rant went on and on as the two Hispanic shoppers blithely ignored the woman’s foul-mouthed, disgusting outburst.

“Speak English, this is America!” she went on when one of the women addressed the other in Spanish. “If you don’t know it, learn it.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/go-...ky-woman-goes-on-tirade-at-hispanic-shoppers/

 

[brogdale]

I'll read Tooze.

Oh wow; that critique of the use of volk. Choosing to interpret Streeck's Marktvolk as "rootless cosmopolitans" is rather a low blow. In distinguishing Marktvolk & Staatsvolk, Streeck is IMO seeking to differentiate the two constituencies of neoliberal political elites and the imbalance of power between debtor and creditors.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Donald Trump passed over a potential candidate for Secretary of State because of bushy moustache, according to insiders close to the incoming US President.

Several of Mr Trump’s associates said they thought that John Bolton’s brush-like moustache was one of the factors that handicapped the bombastic former United Nations ambassador in the sweepstakes for the role.

“Donald was not going to like that moustache,” said one, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I can’t think of anyone that’s really close to Donald that has a beard that he likes.”

Donald Trump rejected someone for his cabinet because they had a moustache

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Donald Trump rejected someone for his cabinet because they had a moustache

He's got a lot of nerve criticizing someone for their odd hair proclivities.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

The Trump transition team instructed the State Department to turn over all information Wednesday about “gender-related staffing, programming, and funding,” setting off alarm bells among those who fear that the new administration is going to purge programs that promote women’s equality along with the people who work on them.

Trump team asked State Department for info on women’s issues programs, sparking fears of another witch hunt

If you want to see what they intend to do, all you have to do is to look at Texas. Their maternal death rate doubled after pulling funding from Planned Parenthood.

 

[Yossarian]

Donald Trump rejected someone for his cabinet because they had a moustache

Freud could probably get to the bottom of Trump's moustache issues.

"You'll always be a disappointment, Donald, even if you put your name in huge letters on a dozen skyscrapers, even if you reach the highest office in the land..."