The Trump Presidency - how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Hair

JimCorrigan said:
Why is my asking a problem?
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I assumed that a seemingly well-educated person would know it.

Thank you, so just to clarify, the Nazi party was socialist in name alone, then?
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Well, I suppose they were concerned with the well-being (or what they thought to be it) of German workers. But the emphasis was on the German (and didn't apply to some subsets of Germans, like Jews...), and I suspect labeling themselves a worker party might just have been a strategy to gather votes - after all, a large part of the population was comprised of workers. The real worker parties (SPD, KPD etc.) were their main enemy domestically.

@ Racin: When labeling someone or political parties "socialist", we should really state what spectrum we mean. The US "middle" is between European conservatives and right-wing extremists*, making the US Democratic Party about as right-leaning as for example the CDU in Germany or the British Tories. The European "middle" is considered socialist in the US...

* By that I mean UKIP, FN, AfD etc. Calling those "populists" insteads of "extremists" is trivialising the issue. But that's a topic for another thread.
 
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DanRoM said:
I assumed that a seemingly well-educated person would know it.
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An educated person also knows what they don't know. ;)

DanRoM said:
Well, I suppose they were concerned with the well-being (or what they thought to be it) of German workers. But the emphasis was on the German (and didn't apply to some subsets of Germans, like Jews...), and I suspect labeling themselves a worker party might just have been a strategy to gather votes - after all, a large part of the population was comprised of workers. The real worker parties (SPD, KPD etc.) were their main enemy domestically.
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This is beginning to sound like it's lost in translation, not between languages, but cultures. It sounds as though many of the Nazi party's motifs were socialist, but not in the same vein as the prevailing socialist minds of the time. Much in the way that Trump republicans are a vastly different sort of right wing party than the many other US right wing think tanks.

Then again, it is also my understanding that the Nazi party engaged in decidedly right wing tactics such as destabilizing people's unions. Surely, you can understand the basis for my confusion. I don't profess to be an expert on this.

However, the crux of my argument that triggered this latest tangent was the notion that the Nazi atrocities themselves were a right wing construct. I still am uncertain of this (as opposed to saying it's incorrect). As far as I know, history had many genocidal political movements and they were not the monopoly of the right wing.
 
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JimCorrigan said:
As far as I know, history had many genocidal political movements and they were not the monopoly of the right wing.
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Violence in general is not monopoly of a single political side, most of all given the fact that political sides are just an oversimplification.

I suppose it's better to say that when someone radicalizes too much into their own ideas, they become intolerant, then extreme, then violent. The idea has only little play, it could also be a football team.

During the 70's, here, we had red terrorism, consisting of small bands of people going around targeting and killing individuals who were thought to be enemies of the people, and black terrorism, consisting of small groups of far-right extremists planting bombs in public spaces to subvert and/or try to control the government. Between the two, more than 500 people were killed during 15 years.

in the end, there was no real difference: political idas became just another excuse to justify violence.
 
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FTR Stalin would be considered far left. I'm not a fan of the linear scale of politics. I think it's circular. Far left and far right (Stalin/Hitler) tends to get blurred.

That's on an extreme level. But you see it also when conservatives support Bernie or Ralph Nader or liberals support Ron Paul.
 
I mean, yes, it does get blurred, cos when you think "left" nowadays you think mostly of progressive people, who are open to a multicultural society, who want to fight racism/sexism even to the ridiculous level to the point where they blow issues out of proportion and get offended, who want socialist everything, etc. I don't remember Stalin pushing for minorities to get affirmative action and all of that. His use of communism was more like something to keep people oppressed and distracted while himself and his officers would enjoy a very much decadent rich life.
 
Yeah, left and right does not make a lot sense, when talking about extremists. Hitler and Mussolini weren't exactly advocates of small government. Trump's protectionism isn't particularly right-wing either. The anarchists, on the other hand, are in favour of small government (just like the libertarians), and yet they are somehow generally accepted to be left-wing extremists...
 
JimCorrigan said:
[...]Then again, it is also my understanding that the Nazi party engaged in decidedly right wing tactics such as destabilizing people's unions. Surely, you can understand the basis for my confusion. I don't profess to be an expert on this.
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It also often helps looking at the mortal enemies of a regime to define what they are. The inner-german opposition that the Nazis deported and killed quite quickly after taking power were the Socialists.

While in all political parties apart from the Nazis themselves obviously you were in danger of ending up in a concentration camp just for being a member, in these two parties you were considered being a terrorist after 1933.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers'_Party_of_Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Germany_(Opposition)

The nationalistic socialistic image that the Nazi-party tried to hide itself behind - was just a front to hide fascism. I would like to think people may not have voted them into power if they had called themselves "the nationalist fascist party of germany". That may not have gone over so well on the ballot ...

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GRtak said:
https://twitter.com/zackbogue/status/843658833448787968
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... you won't be missing the art so much once the fantastic Trump Murals go up everywhere to make those inner cities great again ...

:bunny:

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H0nzik said:
Yeah, left and right does not make a lot sense, when talking about extremists. Hitler and Mussolini weren't exactly advocates of small government. Trump's protectionism isn't particularly right-wing either. The anarchists, on the other hand, are in favour of small government (just like the libertarians), and yet they are somehow generally accepted to be left-wing extremists...
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Which is why politics in democracy are never all black and white, right and wrong etc. - these labels that are used when people argue often just don't really fit. Even stuff like being "conservative" isn't an easy label you can just slap onto politics. The most conservative politics that I have ever seen (for example) is the green party in my home town in germany (apart from maybe the last 2 popes). It's not right-wing what they do, but absolutely conservative. The party is not like that on state or federal level, but in town politics - it does not get any more conservative ...
 
You sure you're not confusing Conservative with conservationism?
I had the impression conservatives want to defend the status quo and keep things as they are or even revert recent changes, go back to the past a little bit... resits further changes in the future. Don't see how a green party would benefit from that, unless what they propose is to go back in time to before industrial revolution times.
 
mpicco said:
You sure you're not confusing Conservative with conservationism?
I had the impression conservatives want to defend the status quo and keep things as they are or even revert recent changes, go back to the past a little bit... resits further changes in the future. Don't see how a green party would benefit from that, unless what they propose is to go back in time to before industrial revolution times.
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My hometown has been the so called 'bicycle capitol of germany' since after the war. As the area around it is quite rural, there has always been a focus on local farmer markets and such. The City has been what you'd call a "green city" before the green party even existed. It is already where they would wish a lot of other cities would go.
All those things happened under (almost constant) rule by the (by name) Conservative party CDU until the early 90ies (until the green party basically arrived). But the CDU traditionally has always tried to work against that, to modernize the town, put more of a focus on car-traffic, less focus on bicycles and such. The green party on the other hand has tried to preserve that which is already there. Politically blocking stuff as parking-garages, new roads, big building projects that would change the city etc ...
They are not really trying to make the town "greener" ... they don't have to, it already is very green even under rule by the Christian democrats. So what they are doing, what they are asking for - is conservative politics, by definition and more so than any other party in town. And in the last elections it was quite funny to see how the CDU and the Green Party were trying to "out-conservative" each other ...
 
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But they might have a point to conserve a beautiful town for the sake of tourism, it all depends what the end game is. Venice doesn't allow cars for example.
 
mpicco said:
But they might have a point to conserve a beautiful town for the sake of tourism, it all depends what the end game is. Venice doesn't allow cars for example.
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I didn't say that was a bad thing ... I was just saying that stuff is often more complicated than just slapping a label on something. A lot of very conservative people in my hometown find themselves voting green, a lot of progressives voting "conservative" CDU.

But not to get totally off-topic here ...

http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/20/news/companies/trump-forbes-net-worth/index.html
President Donald Trump is the nation's first billionaire president - but he's not as rich as he used to be, according to the Forbes 2017 Billionaires List published Monday.
The magazine put his net worth at $3.5 billion, down $1 billion from the rankings it issued a year ago.
As a result, his position on the Forbes' ranking dropped 220 spots, leaving him tied with 19 others as the 544th richest person in the world.[...]
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That brave & humble man really is giving up everything just to make america great again. Another 4 years like that and he'll have given up everything! Maybe then he'll accept a salary during his second term!

/braindead
 
Here's one of the issues when the White House consistently lies and has zero credibility

Laptops etc banned from some middle eastern and some Africa counties flying to the US (including originating from Dubai). Is there a legitimate concern? Is this some sort of protectionist move because of threats posed by Emirates, Qatar air, Etihad etc? Or is this just another way to discrimate against Muslims coming to the USA. Suffice it to say, we have no reason to believe what the White House and agencies say....so it's really just a guessing game.

I would think since the U.K. Is following suit, it migh be based off some sort of threat assessment.

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Read that Canada might follow suit. Surely this will be devastating for these airlines. I personally wouldn't want to fly through One of those airports if I can't keep my laptop with me. Of course since CBP has been wanting access to electronics (and phones) when entering the USA I've already been questioning carrying items with me. Under no circumstances would I hand a border agent my phone and code so they can make a copy of the contents (which they do)
 
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2015 - https://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-commandeered-plane/

[...]A SECURITY RESEARCHER kicked off a United Airlines flight last month after tweeting about security vulnerabilities in its system had previously taken control of an airplane and caused it to briefly fly sideways, according to an application for a search warrant filed by an FBI agent.
Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane?s Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states.
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Nunes was on the transition team, he shouldn't have been leading the investigation in the first place. I haven't heard this, it's purely speculation on my part, but I wonder if Nunes knew of any Russian contact while on the transition team and if he himself had any contact or could have been picked up on surveillance....hence his strong reaction to whatever evidence he was shown.
 
Prediction: Today is the day that these few rebelling Republicans will pass TrumpCare because they have no spine. They shortly pretended that they would not accept this bill (because it was either too much or too little), but Trump is calling their bluff and the prospect of Obamacare staying around because of that will ensure that they will pass TrumpCare.

And with that they've showed that they are weak and Trump will get what he wants from them in the future. The mistake these Republicans made was thinking that Trump wouldn't raise the stakes and call their Bluff. And for once I have to say: he played them well. He knew they would rather pass this bill than have Obamacare stay around a couple of years - and then he build up some pressure, and that was enough. In the future they will certainly fall in-line more easily.
 
I think that's the most likely scenario. The cynic in me things that all of this was just political theater. It was always going to pass, and Trump is just playing this up to mount the tension and make people think he's the expert negotiator he claims to be.

That said, I'm still hoping it goes down in flames and eagerly await the vote.

Taking away health care from 24 million people is bad politics pure and simple. Doing that and giving a huge tax break to the top 1% makes you a monster.
 
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