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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2016 - 10:24am PT
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CW, that is some strong thread drift.
The origins of that problem was us getting suckered into believing that liberating Iraq was a good idea.
Upon routing the Iraqi army in the Gulf War, Bush, Sr. was wise enough to "look out into the barren horizon northward to Baghdad" and realize the nightmare heading north would become.
His son wasn't as wise.
We made the same mistake when we had the dumb idea that we could "fix" Afghanistan.
We would be a lot better off all around now if we had turned the mountain we had Bin Laden cornered to a few weeks after 9/11 into a gravel pile, said "have a nice day" and left.
Now it's a big clusterf*#k from those bad decisions and Obama got left with the shitbag (along with the economic crash happening while he was swearing in).
I would have handled things differently than he has, but I don't know all the moving parts to deal with either.Do you? What is your answer to that big steamy pile out there?
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c wilmot
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 10:46am PT
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I was just pointing out most Americans are more outraged over silly domestic issues like transgender bathrooms then they are with what we are doing in the Middle East. And while yes GW was dumb- where is the outrage over the nonsense Obama is currently doing? He has gotten us involved in several new conflicts and is supporting a very bizarre effort to cause even more chaos in the ME. While people are hysterical over what trump might do- few seem to care about what we are currently doing. To the point GW is blamed for conflicts that the Obama admin got us involved in. The people so upset about trump are wildly hypocritical in their silence over the things our government is doing right now in their name. Like proving aid and military support to "rebel" groups that think nothing of beheading children
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John M
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 10:54am PT
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I agree.. our actions in Syria were a terrible mistake. They were a stable country. On that kind of tangent. I have a friend who is Serbian.. He was a professor in Serbia, but has immigrated to America. He can't stand the Clintons because of how they helped destabilize Serbia.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 12, 2016 - 11:14am PT
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Who was the black Butler in the white house under Kennedy who hated it when his son joined the civil rights movement?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Nov 12, 2016 - 11:18am PT
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Garrison Keillor:
So he won. The nation takes a deep breath. Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting "Lock her up" -- we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted "Stronger Together." It just doesn't chant.
The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that's their problem now. They only wanted to whoop and yell, boo at the H-word, wear profane T-shirts, maybe grab a crotch or two, jump in the RV with a couple six-packs and go out and shoot some spotted owls. It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay -- by "us," I mean librarians, children's authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, birdwatchers, people who make their own pasta, opera goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had our number, like a bratty kid who knows exactly how to make you grit your teeth and froth at the mouth.
Alas for the Trump voters, the disasters he will bring on this country will fall more heavily on them than anyone else. The uneducated white males who elected him are the vulnerable ones and they will not like what happens next.
To all the patronizing b.s. we've read about Trump expressing the white working class's displacement and loss of the American Dream, I say, "Feh!" -- go put your head under cold water. Resentment is no excuse for bald-faced stupidity. America is still the land where the waitress' kids can grow up to become physicists and novelists and pediatricians, but it helps a lot if the waitress and her husband encourage good habits and the ambition to use your God-given talents and the kids aren't plugged into electronics day and night. Whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids.
We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids and we Democrats can go for a long brisk walk and smell the roses.
I like Republicans. I used to spend Sunday afternoons with a bunch of them, drinking Scotch and soda and trying to care about NFL football. It was fun. I tried to think like them. (Life is what you make it. People are people. When the going gets tough, tough noogies.) But I came back to liberal elitism.
Whooping it up for the candidate of cruelty and ignorance does less than nothing for your kids.
Don't be cruel. Elvis said it and it's true. We all experienced cruelty back in our playground days, boys who beat up on the timid, girls who made fun of the homely and naive, and most of us, to our shame, went along with it, afraid to defend the victims lest we become one of them. But by your 20s, you should be done with cruelty.
Mr. Trump was the cruelest candidate since George Wallace. How he won on fear and bile is for political pathologists to study. The country is already tired of his noise, even his own voters. He is likely to become the most intensely disliked president since Herbert Hoover. His children will carry the burden of his name. He will never be happy in his own skin.
But the damage he will do to our country -- who knows? His supporters voted for change, and boy, are they going to get it.
Back to real life. I went up to my hometown the other day and ran into my gym teacher, Stan Nelson, looking good at 96. He commanded a landing craft at Normandy on June 6, 1944, and never said a word about it back then, just made us do chin-ups whether we wanted to or not. I saw my biology teacher Lyle Bradley, a Marine pilot in the Korean War, still going birdwatching in his 90s. I was not a good student then, but I am studying both of them now. They have seen it all and are still optimistic. The past year of politics has taught us absolutely nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. The future is scary Let the uneducated have their day. I am now going to pay more attention to teachers.
Garrison Keillor is an author, entertainer and former host of "A Prairie Home Companion." (
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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Nov 12, 2016 - 11:29am PT
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c wilmot: +1
mark strong: i don't see it as thread drift at all... quite the opposite actually. if you want to get to the heart of any problem/question, you have to look at the situation/information, as much as one is able, as a whole.
there are important questions regarding americas foreign policy [including and especially under obama] that need to be answered if one is going to understand "trumpism" and therefore intelligently respond to it. c wilmot is raising a bunch of those.
otherwise your proposed "response to trumpism" is going to be as short sighted and dead ended as the knee jerk and tribally grounded republican "response to obamaism".
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Nov 12, 2016 - 11:49am PT
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Some insight into why Syria:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-secret-stupid-saudi-us-deal-on-syria/5410130
USA is fearful of a powerful Russia, so needs Saudis for oil price manipulation to crash their economy. Saudis want oil hegemony and want regional power, to get their neo-fascist version of Sunnism to dominate Iran's Shi'ism. Syria is allied with Iran and Saudi Arabia wants Assad out of Syria. Saudi Arabia is a disaster for human rights and exporting human suffering, and is antithetical to everything America used to stand for, but because of bigger global power aspirations, we are dancing with them.
This is one part of Donald Trump's policy that is arguably not evil. While focusing on domestic energy production is a major environmental setback, it can possibly lead to a reduction in dependence on Saudi Arabia and less bullsh!t supporting countries that make the world a worse place.
If he puts pedal to the metal on renewable/sustainable energy investments while also enabling the short-term continuance of massive polluters as a means to deal with the contradictions in our middle-east policy, I can accept that for lack of seeing a better way.
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nature
climber
Boulder, CO
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Nov 12, 2016 - 11:54am PT
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Pretty sure Pence's plan is to snuff alternative energy and uncover as much coal as possible.
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Norton
Social climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 12:02pm PT
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Let the uneducated have their day.
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John M
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 12:08pm PT
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USA is fearful of a powerful Russia, so needs Saudis for oil price manipulation to crash their economy. Saudis want oil hegemony and want regional power, to get their neo-fascist version of Sunnism to dominate Iran's Shi'ism. Syria is allied with Iran and Saudi Arabia wants Assad out of Syria. Saudi Arabia is a disaster for human rights and exporting human suffering, and is antithetical to everything America used to stand for, but because of bigger global power aspirations, we are dancing with them.
Thanks for posting that. I didn't understand the background. I just saw an interview with Assad, and was like, why are we trying to unseat this man. The Saudis.. ack.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Nov 12, 2016 - 12:23pm PT
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One of the reasons I give a lot of slack to our leaders on foreign policy decisions is because it is complicated and messy as anything, and hard to say what is the right thing to do. The information we have access to is always presented with a slant in favor of some agenda.
How would any of us idealist peace-lovers react when confronted with the decisions that our President must face? There is evil in the world that needs to be stopped. Knowing when and how to do so, and how much collateral damage as part of a proactive strategy, vs. waiting and causing more human suffering and misery later... even if you have the purest intentions of doing good in the world it is not an easy job to know what that even means.
I am definitely biased though. I give more slack to folks who profess ideals that I agree with (e.g. Obama) than someone who seems to be focused on fear-based and reactionary measures, and in general supports ideologies I disagree with (e.g. Bush jr). For Obama, I gave him more of the benefit of the doubt that he has good intentions and is trying to make the world a better place (not just to make USA win at any cost), but sometimes dirty situations require a dirty response- and this becomes more apparent when you have all the information than when you live a sheltered easy life in the USA. That's my take on it all.
In the end I guess it really is about more than just policy positions, but how much faith we have in the character of the person in charge, how much they will act in accordance with the values we support, while also handling the burdens we will never fully know.
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jstan
climber
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Nov 12, 2016 - 12:32pm PT
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Back at Trump's first debacle I posted that he had brilliantly solved the problem posed by making one's position in a primary the same as one's position in a general. He reversed his position completely in just two days. From there on he spoke only so as to whip people into a paralyzing anger.
Angry people are trivial to manipulate.
So now he thinks ObamaCare is not so bad after all.
Yawn.
The angry f*#kers still don't realize they were had.
I hope they enjoyed it and do not go on endlessly about the lingering soreness.
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nah000
climber
no/w/here
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Nov 12, 2016 - 01:52pm PT
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a few exemplary [understood to be] facts:
A. oil reserves [exemplifying long term historical and present day complications]
proven u.s. oil reserves as of 2012: 25 billion barrels
u.s. oil consumption in 2015: 7.08 billion barrels of petroleum products.
u.s. known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 3.5 years
iraqi known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 20.3 years
iranian known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 21.5 years
canadian known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 24.7 years
saudi arabian known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 37.4 years
venezuelan known oil reserves divided by 2015 american consumption rate = 42.2 years
inflation adjusted average price of oil per barrel in 2015: $42.53
approximate dollar value of oil consumed by u.s. in 2015: $301 billion
total cost of 2003-2010 iraq war: $1100 billion
total 2015 u.s. federal government budget: $3800 billion
original dick cheney espoused 2003 estimate regarding costs of iraqi war: $100 billion
B. manufacturing jobs [exemplifying medium term historical and present day complications]
american manufacturing jobs lost since nafta in 1994: 4.5 million
american manufacturing production increases from 2009-2015 = ~20%
american manufacturing job increases from 2009-2015 = ~ 6%
[ie. even if trump can bring manufacturing plants back to america, due to automation, the majority of jobs will not come back]
C. trucking jobs [exemplifying future complications]
number of truck drivers in the u.s. = 3.5 million
year of first u.s. license to an automated truck on u.s. roads = 2015
what are the main reasons i chose to point out these particular facts?
1A. to some questions there are no easy answers. in these situations, every direction has risks, even if they are risks along different time frames.
1B. the collective emotional response to large scale exploitation is most often not immediate and decisions made decades and even hundreds of years ago have repercussions in the present if they were never fully collectively integrated.
1C. [emotional] chickens come home to roost. and when they were not integrated [collectively or individually] they are often not directed at the actual root of the issue when they do come home to roost.
2A. our leaders have often not been direct with us as to why they were making the decisions they made [in part because we have not demanded it from them].
2B. if our leaders are not direct with us, it is harder to understand why they are making the difficult decisions that they must make. it is also harder to unpack the future situations we end up in, if we don't understand the decisions that have been made for/with the collective in the past.
2C. we have not demanded that our leaders be direct with us and instead comfort ourselves with demonizing the other [race/nation/president/party/voter/etc] and with falling into line regarding the ever see-sawing 49/51% two party split that must inevitably result in any mature first past the post democracy.
if you made it all of the way through this: thank you for taking the time to consider.
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thebravecowboy
climber
The Good Places
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Nov 12, 2016 - 01:58pm PT
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I am all for the tiger-monkey-gorilla-turtle coalition. tfpu!
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2016 - 03:07pm PT
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Nah000, Thank you! Great post - thought provoking. It would seem to underscore the importance of jumping on the sustainable energy systems technology wave before we miss it and have to buy all of the developed technology we let go from China. We will then be their vassals.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Nov 12, 2016 - 04:13pm PT
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This is only thread drift if the mention of wives sentiments are to be treated as if we are all now Trumpians. . . .
Mark, tell your wife or share the picture.
my wife won't talk to me or take pictures of me when I climb cordless
Unless it it so stupid, that if some thing tragic were to happen
it is worth having the picture,
mostly I only climb things cordless that I have ruthlessly wired,
she knows this and hates me for it
so no pictures of the idjut
But when I go do the dodo route
once a pristine corner of an urban park
now as you see
the place that was chosen for the shischst box,
she stands far away & takes pics that still manage to show how fat I am.
She agrees with your wife's sentiments
It should hurt real good when men do something stupid.
And Nahooo,
I always read what you write often three times,
Once over straight thru, and then taking notes
then the third time to make sure I've absorbed what you've said,
even if I don't understand it all.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2016 - 06:03pm PT
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I used to solo a lot. My wife and I had an agreement that I'd give it up if we were getting' married and havin' kids until they were on their own.
Fair enough.
Now I haven't climbed enough - used to be 6 days a week for a few years - to have it be safe.
Oh, well. The kids - my three daughters are awesome - were worth it!
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whoops
climber
paradise, ca
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Nov 12, 2016 - 06:09pm PT
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I am the father of two daughters and I have a granddaughter. Any man that talks about woman the way he does is a POS. I despise trump with a passion I rarely feel and am amazed that any man with daughters could vote for him.
My goal is to never lose my ability to be outraged by this kind of despicable behaviour. When you accept it without thought you are creating a fundamental shift in the fabric of our society and I for one will never normalize this crap.
Whether or not his conservative, trickle down, policies will be successful on the national scale is hidden in the future but Kansas has been trying to make it work on the state level for several years without much love.
I worked in London for several years in the early 2000's. When America elected Jr my coworkers asked me how it felt to have an "idiot" for a president? After this election they called and asked "how could we repeat the same mistake". They also said "you Dems gave them Obama and Clinton, you got Bush and Trump in return. We figure it takes both Bush and Trump's IQ to add up to 100". So much for how people in London feel about trump.
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 12, 2016 - 06:24pm PT
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As a father to three daughters and married for 36 years to the love of my life I find Trumps' behavior toward women despicable.
I find his behavior toward his daughter Ivanka disgusting to a degree I have no words for. I have felt physically ill - sick to my stomach - at the thought of it's dysfunction.
I respect the office, I have no respect for the man. He deserves compassion for his brokenness as a person, he doesn't deserve the office. He betrays the most basic values that we as Americans claim to value. Indeed, many even proselytize to hold dear. What does that say about us as a group? We are hypocrites.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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Nov 12, 2016 - 06:31pm PT
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You are a good man,Mark Force.
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