I’m an American who’s been living in Germany for the last two years (my wife is German-born). What you say is exactly true. Living here, my thoughts and perceptions often pick up faint echoes of the question “How did this happen?” still resonating in German streets, parks, farms, and forests. Now, watching the malice, chaos, and destruction manifested in America, I understand. There are many answers to this question, of course. But one thing I see so clearly is that it didn’t require the whole society. It simply took a few extremely warped “leaders” in the right positions and just enough angry/stupid/hateful people to follow them. Just a few, just enough. And everyone else—everyone else—fell over the cliff with them. So it was and so it goes again.
IIRC, I don’t think more than 8-10% of the German Citizenry were NAZI party members. All it takes is a small, critical mass of extremists, to overturn a democratic government.
He looks the type, I’m not into empiricism that strongly, so it remains a working hypothesis.
Being uneducated I know how many idiots there are among my people.
What I did not know is how many so called educated people are idiots.
I was reading the dismal news this morning and especially noting some of RFK Jr’s complete and utter bullshit and it occurred to me that the age of science is coming to a close in America - our fate will now be determined by people who hold the “right” opinions, science and facts be damned. And a lot of those “right” opinions have gained quite a foothold on the left, also - witness the hysteria around GMO grains and other foods and the knee jerk reaction that anything “organic” or “natural” must be superior to anything created by research and science.
One of my daughters lurks around DoD chatgroups (she used to work for DoD). The rank and file soldiers hate the preening muthafucka.
“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.” – George Orwell
OK ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, how come the truth is rarely stated. Trump is a Russian agent. They have owned him for forty plus years. First wife was Czech when that country was part of the eastern block. Current wife is Slovenian (beautiful country, check it out) whose father was a member of the Slovenian communist establishment. Not sure if it was junior or eric who stated they don’t need American banks because they get their money from the Russians.
I would say in his first term he was ignorant. But now in his second term he really is this dumb/gullible. Maybe I shouldn’t point this out because that will be his defense if he ever has to answer to court for his actions.
What is telling to me is his shot at Maine’s Gov. Mills when he said “We are the Federal Law”. I didn’t take his comment to be using the “We” as in the federal gov’t, but him personally being the implied royal “We”.
Why sonny I remember the day when the “right” opinion was the same the next day you woke up.
Heck, even old enough to remember when the the “right” opinion was the same the next day even among the right.
May be if we could locate one of those observable facts (not to be confused with the famous Schrödinger’s fact) may be could go back to the good old days.
I wouldn’t say the age of science is coming to a close, because scientific advancements will still keep chugging along in the background, although it will lose some Federal funding under Trump.
People on both sides of the political divide have always been science denial idiots even before the Trump era. I remember getting into arguments over the dinner table with people in this very liberal town I live in, about things like the dangers of 5G cell phones.
What happened to make it worse is the way traditional news media have faded into the background as truth tellers. We no longer have Walter Cronkite on national TV telling everyone the facts. Now it’s choose your own facts in your preferred social media bubble. A CNN survey reported that something like 40% of people under the age of 30 get their “news” from “news influencers” online, which tend to be male and right wing. Liberals don’t have our own Joe Rogan online to counter any of that.
At this point, gaining more influence on social media is the only way we’re going to claw our way back to relevance and science-backed facts.
I shy away from conspiracy theories, but…
A former senior Soviet KGB spy chief has claimed that Donald Trump was recruited as a spy by Russian intelligence as early as 38 years ago by his department, and given the codename ‘Krasnov’.
Russia’s ‘Committee for State Security’, abbreviated as KGB, was the main security agency of the Soviet Union between 1954 to 1991, responsible for internal security, foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and secret police functions.
In an extraordinary post on Facebook on 20 February, Alnur Mussayev – who used to run the successor to the Soviet-era KGB in Kazakhstan – claimed that he was personally aware of Trump’s recruitment by the agency in 1987.
The recruitment, he said, was undertaken by his own KGB department. One of the key roles of that department was to acquire intelligence through business leaders in Western countries.
I don’t think Trump is a Russian agent in “normal sense”. (God did I really have to type that?) He is susceptible to praise and flattery. Putin knows how to push, and then pull DonOLD along to get him to do what Putin wants. I’m pretty sure that Putin knows better than to give orders to DonOLD.
Trump revised the terms of the deal he wants from Ukraine. It was being reported as minerals, but it’s far more and includes oil, gas, and revenue from port operations. It does not include any security guarantees, which means it’s not even a Mafia style protection racket, just a basic shakedown. Free gifted link:
Relevant bits:
The terms of the new proposal, which is dated Feb. 21 and was reviewed by The New York Times, call for Ukraine to relinquish half of its revenues from natural resources, including minerals, gas and oil, as well as earnings from ports and other infrastructure.
The new document states that the revenues will be directed to a fund in which the United States holds 100 percent financial interest, and that Ukraine should contribute to the fund until it reaches $500 billion — the amount Mr. Trump has demanded from the war-torn country in exchange for American aid.
That sum, more than twice Ukraine’s economic output before the war, was not mentioned in the previous version of the deal. It is unclear whether Mr. Trump is requesting that sum in exchange for past American military and financial assistance, or whether it would also apply to future support.
We have some massive trouble brewing and, personally, I think we’re closer to fulmination than we’d care to admit.
This is the article that reports, among other items,
Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “Fucking people, trying to rip me off.”
A desire to force U.S. military leaders to be obedient to him and not the Constitution is one of the constant themes of Trump’s military-related discourse. Former officials have also cited other recurring themes: his denigration of military service, his ignorance of the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, his admiration for brutality and anti-democratic norms of behavior, and his contempt for wounded veterans and for soldiers who fell in battle.
It’s for his sovereign wealth fund.