Support for Trump an indication that most people are bad?

[Greenman]

That's a damned good point. Now half the news is about assholes who are famous simply for being famous and tons of people are demanding their own right to be assholes. We got political correctness, we lost civility and common sense.

Political correctness is an attempt to control the speech of others, civility is controlling your own.
Common sense is out of fashion because it imposes responsibility for your own actions. Abandon common sense, and you acquire the ability to make others pay for your own stupidity. Shoot yourself in the foot and you become a "gun shot victim" rather than an idiot.

 

[Moonbeam]

Political correctness is an attempt to control the speech of others, civility is controlling your own.
Common sense is out of fashion because it imposes responsibility for your own actions. Abandon common sense, and you acquire the ability to make others pay for your own stupidity. Shoot yourself in the foot and you become a "gun shot victim" rather than an idiot.

Common sense is an appeal to group think. There is nothing common about sense at all. It is rarely a property of those who claim to have it. Nobody can have common sense who is not free of programming. People who do not know what they feel are unaware of emotional bias. They are essentially blind. The blind imagine they have common sense because they are blind and have a need to flatter themselves.

 

[Newell Steamer]

No, they are not bad.

They do enjoy listening to 3rd graders though; http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-like-a-third-grader-121340.html#.Vc9BtjqCOK0

 

[Moonbeam]

And it is probably showing the underbelly of the American character. That's my only explanation for it.

If the things that you say are true then it would seem to me that you can only see them because, somehow or another, you are resistant to being hypnotized, that propaganda has for some reason rolled off of you like water off a duck's back. This would imply to me that at core there must be something about human nature that would give us such a potential, that there must be something deeply human in us that resists being propagandized, and the reason why propaganda was invented in the first place as a means of control.

As we come into the world necked and without capacity to self sustain, it would seem that the best way to manipulate people would be by directing their needs. You will get love and protection in exchange for obedience. In such a manner one could create a world of brain dead Zombies with unconscious needs to find brains that function properly. Maybe a few succeed.

 

[LegendKiller]

People still don't get Trump. Here's how you can understand it.


http://crankytrex.blogspot.com/2015/08/trump-is-fuck-you-candidate.html

Jesse Ventura was a "fuck you" candidate also.

To those who think that it has anything to do with race, fuck you too.

 

[LegendKiller]

meh

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If the things that you say are true then it would seem to me that you can only see them because, somehow or another, you are resistant to being hypnotized, that propaganda has for some reason rolled off of you like water off a duck's back. This would imply to me that at core there must be something about human nature that would give us such a potential, that there must be something deeply human in us that resists being propagandized, and the reason why propaganda was invented in the first place as a means of control.

As we come into the world necked and without capacity to self sustain, it would seem that the best way to manipulate people would be by directing their needs. You will get love and protection in exchange for obedience. In such a manner one could create a world of brain dead Zombies with unconscious needs to find brains that function properly. Maybe a few succeed.

Now that you bring that up, I'm always shameless to say I was a Brain Dead Zombie for 40 years, ending around the period 1999 to 2002. My phrase for it: "Brain-dead sleep-walking news-zombie."

I find it interesting, for example, that people in my county subscribe to a newspaper that is primarily "advocacy journalism" and a rightist propaganda organ. It's readers frequently use the cliche' about other media: "The Liberal Media," which is itself a myth. And your average news-hound is lazy: there's a layman's idea that you can be an expert at anything if you only read one book on the subject, extended to the notion that you will understand all you need to in the daily world by reading one newspaper.

But, just as I don't think people consider "highway taxes" when they're driving their car on the interstate (or that such things have an actual cost), I'm pretty sure that newsreaders don't attack the papers daily with a conscious assumption that somebody is choosing the typeface, the page, the headlines and bold print for them.

Here are a couple books I found interesting:

Jacques Ellul, "Propaganda," 1964.
Simpson, " Science of Coercion: Communication Research and Psychological Warfare, 1945-1960," ~1995.

There are also the works of Noam Chomsky, but of course he is a "liberal" so you absolutely must discount his writings according to the other side.

Carl Bernstein had concluded through his own investigations that there had been some 500 media journalists or publishers in the 1970s who were "assets" of the National Security Apparatus -- specifically, CIA. At that time, the Church Committee (Senator Frank Church) and congressional subcommittees put the kibosh on CIA's Cold War propaganda campaigns. But there's no government monopoly on propaganda science and art.

That's why we now have Super-PACs. And that's why I've found it interesting to discover cabals of Masters of the Universe invested traditionally in Big Oil and defense, who also bought up strings of radio and TV stations, newspapers and other media.

"BP puts America First." "We at Koch Enterprises grow vegetables."

Just pay attention to your own mental laziness when you watch TV or read the papers.

FOOTNOTE: " it would seem that the best way to manipulate people would be by directing their needs. You will get love and protection in exchange for obedience. "

You can trace that idea all the way back to Thomas Hobbes: People will give up their freedom of thought or action to a "Sovereign" who will protect them from a life that is "brutish, nasty and short." Fear and warfare are marvelous vehicles of consensus, obedience and cooperation towards whatever ends those who use those tools have in mind.

I was about 54 years old in 2001. I could see the next 8 years with a certain clarity, while listening to the cornpone babble of the last resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. It wasn't "talking to me;" it was talking to a much more malleable, simplistic mindset: "The terrorists want to take away our free-ee-doms." Etc. Etc.

And as for the NSA (the Patriot Act, etc.). Snowden was first and foremost a criminal -- unlike Daniel Elsberg, who defends him. If people had been watching both our fiction and non-fiction going back to 1993, it would've been no surprise. The fiction: a movie entitled "Sneakers." The non-fiction, BBC's expose of ECHELON in 1999 -- NSA's ability to tap any telephone anytime, anywhere. The entire telecommunications industry literally grew and evolved under NSA auspices from ~1953 forward.

This was published around 1999 -- a revision or sequel to an earlier book, "the Puzzle Palace:"

James Bamford, "Body of Secrets."

Today, I see Chicken-Little at almost every turn. No less for myself, I suppose that folks don't have time to read four newspapers per day, study declassified history, do their own analysis. People who haven't retired have to work. So you can be dumber than a sack of hammers, but you don't have to be -- to get the same outcome.

 

[MongGrel]

People still don't get Trump. Here's how you can understand it.


http://crankytrex.blogspot.com/2015/08/trump-is-fuck-you-candidate.html

Jesse Ventura was a "fuck you" candidate also.

To those who think that it has anything to do with race, fuck you too.

A lot of people do "Get" Trump.

You do not obviously.

 

[LegendKiller]

A lot of people do "Get" Trump.

You do not obviously.

He is no more egotistical and self interested than any other candidate. 3xcept he isn't doing it for the money.

 

[MongGrel]

He is no more egotistical and self interested than any other candidate. 3xcept he isn't doing it for the money.

Too funny.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

He is no more egotistical and self interested than any other candidate. 3xcept he isn't doing it for the money.

I think you're naïve. That's part of the old myth: Elect the rich guy; he won't be tempted. It ignores that those closest to the money [i.e., Wall Street, etc.] will always serve themselves and others in the same milieu first.

But true -- he isn't doing it for the money. He gets a charge out of the attention and exposure. And he IS more narcissistic than most of the others; he demonstrates it every time he opens his mouth.

This factor was exposed during the dragnet for the two escaped lifers in New York last month. David Sweat had an extensive documented psychological profile, no less than Charles Manson when the latter was at McNeal in WA state. It wasn't some "news scam" when they announced that Sweat would tell all because he can't help himself.

This is no different from Trump's propensity to talk about himself and his exploits. In the extreme case, a narcissistic serial killer loves to tease the authorities with clues at the scenes of the crime. In Trump's case, he's not much different in certain respects than others in the Hollywood scene.

And so? "He's tapped into a nerve among the public." They're unhappy the "way things are." In the 1930's, people all over the Midwest held up Dillinger, Baby-Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and sons as folk-heroes. It's parallel behavior.

I'd be worried about a Trump wild card in the White House. I'd be just as worried about Bush or some number of the others -- but for different reasons.

 

[stockwiz]

It's Jerry Springer or old school WWF style attitude that people seem to like. If the guy was honest I'd support him just for being honest but I don't necessarily think he is.. I think he knows what sells and is playing on people to be something different from the same old, bought out candidates who lie through their teeth.

Obama has been so good?

 

[LegendKiller]

I think you're naïve. That's part of the old myth: Elect the rich guy; he won't be tempted. It ignores that those closest to the money [i.e., Wall Street, etc.] will always serve themselves and others in the same milieu first.

But true -- he isn't doing it for the money. He gets a charge out of the attention and exposure. And he IS more narcissistic than most of the others; he demonstrates it every time he opens his mouth.

This factor was exposed during the dragnet for the two escaped lifers in New York last month. David Sweat had an extensive documented psychological profile, no less than Charles Manson when the latter was at McNeal in WA state. It wasn't some "news scam" when they announced that Sweat would tell all because he can't help himself.

This is no different from Trump's propensity to talk about himself and his exploits. In the extreme case, a narcissistic serial killer loves to tease the authorities with clues at the scenes of the crime. In Trump's case, he's not much different in certain respects than others in the Hollywood scene.

And so? "He's tapped into a nerve among the public." They're unhappy the "way things are." In the 1930's, people all over the Midwest held up Dillinger, Baby-Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker and sons as folk-heroes. It's parallel behavior.

I'd be worried about a Trump wild card in the White House. I'd be just as worried about Bush or some number of the others -- but for different reasons.

Yeah, I'm "naive". I hired, worked for, and work with Wall St'ers. I can sniff out conflicts of interest a mile away. I know what Trump is.

But what is appealing to him is that what he is is out in the open. He doesn't candy coat it. This is what people don't get about him. How could righties go for somebody who is as liberal as him? Because people are fucking tired of forked-tongue, two-faced, conflicted interest assholes.

Who do you think Wall St. buys more, Trump or Clinton/Bush? Both. They buy all of them to the same exact amount. Why do you think Goldman donates the exact same amount to Billery and Bush? Because they know they need to cover their bases.

Trump wouldn't be nearly as much of a "wild card" in the WH. He knows what'll get him elected and what will get him re-elected. Furthermore, he also knows what will fuck his whole brand-image over, and he knows that's his #1 asset.

 

[DCal430]

I shake my head at all of the republicans around me, including all of these trump supporters. Are they totally ignorant, or are they just depraved and evil. Do they not understand these republican politicians don't care about people, and support the greedy rich trampling over and using and abusing those most in need. Do they not see how republicans want the poor and sick and to be used and then cast away to die.

I just shake my head.

 

[LegendKiller]

I shake my head at all of the republicans around me, including all of these trump supporters. Are they totally ignorant, or are they just depraved and evil. Do they not understand these republican politicians don't care about people, and support the greedy rich trampling over and using and abusing those most in need. Do they not see how republicans want the poor and sick and to be used and then cast away to die.

I just shake my head.

Do you think Clinton gives a shit about "people"? If you do then you're deluded. She cares about herself, getting elected, the power, and the money. The same as every other politician we have running.

Depraved or evil? Hardly. It's realism. We have a limited amount of resources. We can't give everything to everybody, that shit failed. We do need somebody that's a big pragmatic about the wealth distribution in this country but you don't see that anywhere in this field.

As far as illegals, stop the insanity.

 

[werepossum]

Political correctness is an attempt to control the speech of others, civility is controlling your own.
Common sense is out of fashion because it imposes responsibility for your own actions. Abandon common sense, and you acquire the ability to make others pay for your own stupidity. Shoot yourself in the foot and you become a "gun shot victim" rather than an idiot.

Well said indeed.

Common sense is an appeal to group think. There is nothing common about sense at all. It is rarely a property of those who claim to have it. Nobody can have common sense who is not free of programming. People who do not know what they feel are unaware of emotional bias. They are essentially blind. The blind imagine they have common sense because they are blind and have a need to flatter themselves.

Hey, you found yet another way to say "everyone who doesn't think exactly like me is defective and dangerous". Congrats!

I shake my head at all of the republicans around me, including all of these trump supporters. Are they totally ignorant, or are they just depraved and evil. Do they not understand these republican politicians don't care about people, and support the greedy rich trampling over and using and abusing those most in need. Do they not see how republicans want the poor and sick and to be used and then cast away to die.

I just shake my head.

Yeah, it's a damned shame that so many people don't realize the glories of North Korea. Obviously all those people are "totally ignorant" or "just depraved and evil".

Dumbass. At least Moonie can be entertaining in his delusion.

 

[Wyndru]

People like trump because he is a trainwreck, the same reason why they watch reality tv.

When it gets to the incumbent stage we won't even remember he was in the running.

I love when anyone calls him "Refreshing".

 

[LegendKiller]

People like trump because he is a trainwreck, the same reason why they watch reality tv.

When it gets to the incumbent stage we won't even remember he was in the running.

I love when anyone calls him "Refreshing".

This is where you are wrong. They like Trump becsus he doesn't focus on wedge issues and is talking about something important. Jobs.

 

[fskimospy]

This is where you are wrong. They like Trump becsus he doesn't focus on wedge issues and is talking about something important. Jobs.

Yeah because if there's one thing that ultra partisan primary voters don't care about it's wedge issues.

What?

They like his combative style, that's it.

 

[fskimospy]

Yeah, I'm "naive". I hired, worked for, and work with Wall St'ers. I can sniff out conflicts of interest a mile away. I know what Trump is.

But what is appealing to him is that what he is is out in the open. He doesn't candy coat it. This is what people don't get about him. How could righties go for somebody who is as liberal as him? Because people are fucking tired of forked-tongue, two-faced, conflicted interest assholes.

Who do you think Wall St. buys more, Trump or Clinton/Bush? Both. They buy all of them to the same exact amount. Why do you think Goldman donates the exact same amount to Billery and Bush? Because they know they need to cover their bases.

Trump wouldn't be nearly as much of a "wild card" in the WH. He knows what'll get him elected and what will get him re-elected. Furthermore, he also knows what will fuck his whole brand-image over, and he knows that's his #1 asset.

They buy both equally?

 

[Nebor]

I, personally, am depraved and evil. I want to see more wealth in the hands of the people who can use it to create jobs.

 

[HeXen]

I hope Trump wins.

 

[waggy]

Political correctness is an attempt to control the speech of others, civility is controlling your own.
Common sense is out of fashion because it imposes responsibility for your own actions. Abandon common sense, and you acquire the ability to make others pay for your own stupidity. Shoot yourself in the foot and you become a "gun shot victim" rather than an idiot.

/this

He is no more egotistical and self interested than any other candidate. 3xcept he isn't doing it for the money.

no. he is doing for the money. ALL of them are doing it for the money. That is the problem.

Running is strenghening Trumps brand like crazy. win or lose he still wins. Though he wins bigger if he actually wins the Presidency.

Look at the how much each president has made once out of office. Including the clintons.

This is ALL about money. not the pay they make while in office but what they will make after.


I will say im coming around to trump. I know where he stands on things. PC? no time for it. he says what he thinks. He won't dick around with the issues. I KNOW the reason he is doing it. money.

He is also a business man and i think he will surround himself with people who know what the fuck they are doing.

with the rest they say they are in it to help. Maybe the only one i could believe that of is Bernie (who right now i am strongly in favor of)

 

[HeXen]

^Trumps already a billionaire. He may be aware that it strengthens his brand but it also could weaken it if people have a distaste of him too. But I'm certain he personally does not care nor think about money anymore. When you have billions, there is a point of diminishing returns where it's just moot and you continue on to keep your business and brand going but that's it.
I think he's running for other reasons than money.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Yeah, I'm "naive". I hired, worked for, and work with Wall St'ers. I can sniff out conflicts of interest a mile away. I know what Trump is.

But what is appealing to him is that what he is is out in the open. He doesn't candy coat it. This is what people don't get about him. How could righties go for somebody who is as liberal as him? Because people are fucking tired of forked-tongue, two-faced, conflicted interest assholes.

Who do you think Wall St. buys more, Trump or Clinton/Bush? Both. They buy all of them to the same exact amount. Why do you think Goldman donates the exact same amount to Billery and Bush? Because they know they need to cover their bases.

Trump wouldn't be nearly as much of a "wild card" in the WH. He knows what'll get him elected and what will get him re-elected. Furthermore, he also knows what will fuck his whole brand-image over, and he knows that's his #1 asset.

Wow! Not being facetious here -- nuanced responses!

But WHAT BASIS in fact can you use to conclude that imperative?

I mean . . . did you sign some sort of binding contract with him? And since we're talking about a possibility of voter reversal for his second term, how would that matter if he really didn't care to run a second term?

What has been his track-record for public service or even community service?

Here are some cards in my hand, although you could say they don't belong in the deck.

In the summer of 2000, I predicted (1) 911; (2) the Iraq War; (3) the Great Real-estate meltdown and financial crisis. I was even ahead of Obama on these things, if I remember the news correctly about his Senate term and the eve of war, with the old octogenarian Senator Byrd filibustering his heart out to deny Bush funding for the war.

I can only find a general basis for my prediction. I have a hard time understanding it. There are maybe two other witnesses to a conversation that took place in the North Cascades around a campfire on September Tenth, 2001. Another e-mail correspondent from Florida I'd known since the 2000 campaign wrote me in 2008: she had been cleaning out her e-mail boxes and sorting archives. "Do you believe that you wrote this in 2000?!" she asked.

But ultimately, it's as if I'm making up a big story to anyone who can't interview my witnesses or find it even practical.

So I must know: How well do you really know what Donald Trump will do? How do you come by this Criswell clairvoyance?

See -- I can't even answer the parallel question for my own experience.

Do you think Clinton gives a shit about "people"? If you do then you're deluded. She cares about herself, getting elected, the power, and the money. The same as every other politician we have running.

Depraved or evil? Hardly. It's realism. We have a limited amount of resources. We can't give everything to everybody, that shit failed. We do need somebody that's a big pragmatic about the wealth distribution in this country but you don't see that anywhere in this field.

As far as illegals, stop the insanity.

I didn't have much skin in the game for the ACA. There are those who think it's just no damn good; those who confirm to themselves that they aren't losing an extra dime; and those who actually benefit.

But there was no reason for Hillary to stir the pot about "affordable care" in the '90s, with Fiske and then Ken Starr turning over stones about Whitewater and everything else. Yet, she did.

The Clintons have made their money in politics. But their assets are small potatoes. You take a car and drive around rural Arkansas, look at some old photos in Bill's memoir; take a Sunday drive around Chicago and Park Ridge.

Then ask yourself if Justin Bieber's success went to his head, too soon, too much.

And examine the spin about both Clintons since Vince Foster and Genifer Flowers or Paula Jones.

I could say "I can't trust anybody," and I probably mean it when I just think it. But this isn't about "trust." You have any of a number of things you can do with your vote, and any of a number of ways to spend your spare time. Then, you've got something like a Prisoner's Dilemma game: if you find your smorgasbord party, you can't win. If you support the only other party, you can't have your smorgasbord.

There was a film release in 2001 with Michael Caine and Brendon Fraser. The public didn't pay much attention to it, because of the events that year. It was based on Graham Greene's "The Quiet American." Greene had been a foreign correspondent in Vietnam during the early '50s, so this was autobiographical fiction.

At one point, a local Vietnamese journalist is speaking to Caine's character, who is in turn based on Greene's real experience.

"Are you a communist? Would you choose sides?"

"I am a journalist by day, a communist by night. I think -- if you are human, you should choose sides."

And this has nothing to do with a "communist" or an ideology of any kind. It has more to do with moral imperatives.

So for me, Hillary would be better than either Bush or Trump or Fiorina. I just wish the Dems could find another successful community organizer. What Hillary lacks, Biden has some measure; what Biden lacks, Hillary still has.

Embrace class-struggle as a state of nature. James Madison did, in Federalist Paper #10.