Our Felonious Ex-President

[mindysan33]

There was a book about AIPAC and it’s influence, though. And israel isn’t the only country who has a lobbying group in the US. Both Turkey and Armenia have one, for example, as I’m sure do many other countries, especially those who aren’t developed countries and need to get US backing in some way.

A lot of people also agree with AIPAC’s general aims, which is a strong, militarily fortified Jewish state (some would take that at the expense of a democratic state, too), as our key ally in the region. Plus, worrying over AIPAC in a public manner smacks a bit too much of antisemitism for many - the whole idea of a secret cabel of Jews running the world.

The Russians have a long history of not really being our allies in the past 100 years (except during the second world war, and in that case, they wouldn’t have been had Hitler not turned on Stalin - he would have happily sat out the war, if he’d gotten his buffer zone).

Now I really hope that someone has a Stalin twitter feed, that talks about what was happening in Soviet history, but on the twitters. That’s a pardoy that needs to happen!

[Wanderfound]

I think the millions of refugees beg to differ there. Someone is at war with someone, because there is an actual war happening. The complicated nature of the alliances doesn’t mean that no one’s at war, but that the entanglements go deep and are very hard to parse.

I was being glib/snarky. There’s no official war declared, but it’s been a warzone for years.

[mindysan33]

My bad. Sorry to misunderstand.

[KeisterButton]

Did anyone work on today’s (July 15, Saturday, Zachary Spitz) New York Times crossword and have 45 come to mind as the grid filled?

Not only does a portrayer of a Fascist buffoon in the film “The Great Dictator” make an appearance but “Deplorable” is seen twice as a clue too!

[Wanderfound]

Eleven across.

[smulder]

nearly zero effort by Clinton to credibly generate enthusiasm for herself

[gatto]

I’d rather give her the benefit of the doubt that it was strategy rather than incompetence.

it’s totally strategy.

the democrats still believe that because the republicans are literally crazy they can tilt starboard on economic policy to please donors.

the problem is that actual voters - including the whites who side with trump - believe corporate interests are killing them.

so, clinton lost. and the democrats have every​ chance of losing again. it’s a high stakes gamble, but that’s where we’re at.

the only way it could be different is if in every interview about health care the d’s were saying “single payer”, education reform, prison reform, and every issue that the actually​ left cares about.

folks like the clintons are decent​ well-meaning people, but they just don’t see the world the way it actually is.

[Voynaimor]

Plus, worrying over AIPAC in a public manner smacks a bit too much of antisemitism for many - the whole idea of a secret cabel of Jews running the world.

To me that’s an example of suppression by false equivalence - equating something real (AIPAC) to something nonexistent which is generally known to be an example of far right anti-Semitism.
The fact that other countries like Turkey do it too doesn’t alter the fact that different standards are applied.
I also happen to think you are wrong about WW2. Stalin made a pact with Hitler to buy time. He knew at some level that his purges had destroyed the effectiveness of his armies and that it would take a long time to rebuild it. And he knew that Hitler would eventually attack. What went badly wrong was that Hitler attacked before Stalin was ready - and might have succeeded.
2017 Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union. It was US interference in Russia - like its meddling in the Middle East - between 1990 and 2000 that caused the present standoff. You can hardly be surprised that the RF is not a US ally; they’ve seen what happened when they tried being one. Basically, looting.

Edit - I feel strongly about this because the US/NATO electoral interference in Ukraine was so blatant, and because US interference in the UK, for similar reasons (opportunity to asset strip) over the last years is one of the key factors behind the result of the EU referendum. The US wanted to peel Ukraine away from the RF and ended up with a nasty little civil war; the Republican interest wanted to peel the UK away from the EU. It’s classical divide and rule. And then the US starts getting uptight about Russian interference in US elections, and I’m afraid all you can hear is my extremely tiny and out of tune violin. The biggest group of people in the world interfering in the politics of other countries live in the US.

[Voynaimor]

the problem is that actual voters - including the whites who side with trump - believe corporate interests are killing them.

But they voted for corporate interests.
The nearest parallel in history I can find is Germany prior to 1848 - and that eventually resulted in a revolution of sorts. It’s a period that may be instructive as there are, in fact, quite a lot of parallels including the hollowing out of the lower middle class, increasing inequality and out of touch politicians.

[gadgetgirl]

But they voted for corporate interests.

The couple conversations I had with Trumpists right after the election (people I knew were fiscally conservative but who I never would have guessed would support someone like him) really brought this home for me.

They basically said Trump would bring the corporate types to heel because he was different. He was a maverick. He wasn’t a corporate drone, but a smart businessman.

I think they read his series of failures in business tied with his nouveau riche/gauche image as “innovative”.

[Lucy_Gothro]

Remember H. Ross Perot?

[gadgetgirl]

Honestly? Not especially. A lot of the 90s passed me by – I didn’t have reliable access to the news then. I just Googled him though.

[Chaz1]

I remember Perot stating he enjoyed campaigning for president but didn’t realize how hard the job would be. Déja-vu.

[Voynaimor]

He wasn’t a corporate drone, but a smart businessman

I do wonder sometimes if they confused middle managers in corporations with the sharks that tend to rise to the top and run them. The neighbor who works for AT&T has a bigger house and car than me, Trump will put a stop to that!
As Nassim Taleb has pointed out, more unhappiness is caused in people by comparison with their neighbors than abstract ideas like inequality. (He mentions in one of his books, I believe, the therapist who suggested to a family that was unhappy and living in a very rich area but one where they were near the bottom, that they should move back to where they were in the upper quartile.)

Remember H. Ross Perot?

I do! I remember our then director of research remarking to me that Perot’s problem was that he didn’t understand that nobody ever talks about “great world managers”.
Trump too is not a leader, though he’s at the shark end of business rather than the management end.

[gadgetgirl]

I do wonder sometimes if they confused middle managers in corporations with the sharks that tend to rise to the top and run them.

I haven’t heard that before, but it makes total sense to me. About two years ago I casually mentioned I worked in banking in a comment, and was shocked by the pile-on that followed, and which continued even after I explained I worked in IT, not investments or mortgage approvals, and that I was in Canada, not the US. I’d held onto my job and home while others were losing theirs, and that made me evil.

I wish I could have made them understand how the rank-and-file Americans in banking I talked to felt about the 2008 crisis.

[ChickieD]

Trump has secretive teams to roll back regulations, led by hires with deep...

[mindysan33]

To me that’s an example of suppression by false equivalence - equating something real (AIPAC) to something nonexistent which is generally known to be an example of far right anti-Semitism.

Yet the fact that it can seen to be antisemitism does have an impact.

Stalin made a pact with Hitler to buy time.

Maybe. We can’t know what was in Stalin’s head, just what he did.

2017 Russian Federation is not the Soviet Union

I’m aware, thanks. I’m probably one of the few people who thinks this isn’t just more of the same as with the CW.

Yes, we meddled in Russian affairs, doesn’t mean they are helpless victims. Just like in the CW, there are no innocents with regards to seeking to undermine the other. Both sides are guilty. Even Ukrainian themselves played a role in this whole mess.

then the US starts getting uptight about Russian interference in US elections

I think that’s a good thing to get uptight about, actually. It’s given us an authoritarian minded president, which is no small thing.

I’m afraid all you can hear is my extremely tiny and out of tune violin

I live here. My daughter lives here. Our rights are being eroded. Sorry if I’m not supposed to care about my daughter’s future, because our government has done many, MANY shitty things. I thought I can and should care about both, actually.

[mindysan33]

Can I finish!

Sometimes I miss Dana Carvey on SNL, only slightly less than Phil Hartman.

[Voynaimor]

I’m sorry. I do understand that and how you feel. But I also know you’re an actual historian and are supposed to weigh all these things, whereas other people reading my post may not be aware of some of the points of contention. You and I know the difference between the RF and the Soviet Union but you’d be surprised (perhaps) how many people really don’t; I encounter people who think that the RF is still nominally socialist (“communist”) rather than a somewhat autocratic kleptarchy.

I’m currently reading a recent book by Max Hastings (yes, I know…) in which he makes the point very clearly for what, I’m sure for a number of his readers, will be the first time; that the British government and Churchill made many tactical and even strategic errors before the US entered WW2 because they did not understand that for Hitler the war against Britain was merely a sideshow and his strategic focus was on Balkan oil and the defeat of the Soviet Union. But, given our national love affair with myths, it’ll probably be another hundred years before school history gives a proper perspective on that.

I appreciate your feelings, but you have to understand that we have feelings too, and at the moment I feel that people on the Right in the US have fouled up our country. People are starving and dying because of neoliberalism, and I am not exaggerating. The US needs to get over its experiment with idiocracy and pseudo-aristocracy*, and it won’t do that, I fear, before things get a lot worse. Only then will the UK have a chance. Quite honestly if Trump went all out protectionist it would be good for us because it would be clear that our politicians are not going to get some mythical “trade deal” outside the EU. I have children too, and grandchildren, and I worry about their future as potentially part of a larger Puerto Rico being exploited by neocons.

We can’t understand what Stalin thought but there is a great deal of evidence, since no Soviet Union official would ever go against Stalin and there are records of their activities prior to mid-1941. Stalin went to a lot of effort to persuade Hitler that the USSR was of more use as a supplier than as a conquest. But the development of heavier tanks than Germany was known to possess and which would have superior defensive qualities in the region protecting Moscow and Leningrad is suggestive.

*cf. @AndyHilmer; this is my opinion, not advice. I’m not presuming to tell a massively nuclear-armed State of 300 million people what to do. Winston Churchill after all said that the US could be relied on to do the right thing - after failing at every other option.

[mindysan33]

You and I know the difference between the RF and the Soviet Union but you’d be surprised (perhaps) how many people really don’t

I’m well aware of people’s ignorance, too.

that the British government and Churchill made many tactical and even strategic errors before the US entered WW2 because they did not understand that for Hitler the war against Britain was merely a sideshow

I’m inclined to agree with that assessment. The Eastern Front is ALWAYS the real deal in both world wars and far more critical in understanding the war. But again, that says nothing about Stalin’s views. In addition to wishing for a buffer zones, he might have also seen the pact with Hitler as freeing him up for a free hand in Eastern Europe (Poland and the Baltic especially). Stalin was the worst of the worst, the most violent and blood thirsty, of all the communist leaders in Russia. This is the point that Hannah Arendt makes as well as the point that Timothy Snyder makes in Bloodlands (essentially speaking). But we can’t know what Stalin was thinking, other than by his actions (and by whatever was released at the end of the SU before Putin reclosed the archives). I’d suspect that when Stalin died, there was a pretty effective purge in the aftermath, meaning there is lots we can’t know about Stalin. The secret speech told us a good deal, but not everything, Stalin’s motivations included.

you have to understand that we have feelings too,

Have I ever done or said anything to make you think I don’t know or appreciate that, that I’m somehow unaware of problems, caused in part by the actions of the US government (now and historically)?

People are starving and dying because of neoliberalism, and I am not exaggerating.

Again, I’m well aware. Does that mean I’m not supposed to care about what’s happening here, too?

The US needs to get over its experiment with idiocracy and pseudo-aristocracy, and it won’t do that, I fear, before things get a lot worse.

Yes, I’m aware. What do you precisely, want me to do or say to fix this? I can vote, protest, or join a revolutionary movement, but there isn’t much else I can do except educate young people.

I have children too, and grandchildren, and I worry about their future as potentially part of a larger Puerto Rico being exploited by neocons.

Have I ever made you think that I don’t care about that?

Stalin went to a lot of effort to persuade Hitler that the USSR was of more use as a supplier than as a conquest.

Sure. But again, I’d suggest that this wasn’t just about him wanting to deflect Hitler, and was also about giving himself lattitude in eastern Europe to do as he pleased. His postwar behavior indicates that. Aligning with the allies, and taking down Germany, being part of their dismemberment allowed him the time to be able to build up and dominate the local communist parties across Eastern Europe. We also know that because the Red Army wasn’t in yugoslavia, that he couldn’t do it there, giving Tito the space to tell hm no (getting him kicked out of Cominform in the process). Stalin was a totalitarian, there is no two ways about it.