Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[BasilValentine]

You can include almost anything you put in your mouth like oranges for juice, avocados for salads, grapes for wine, etc.
The conditions for agricultural workers are almost as bad.

You are using what-aboutism on slavery? That is vile.

[zamyrabyrd]

You are using what-aboutism on slavery? That is vile.

Slavery exists now in the world. What are you going to do about it? Doing nothing is VILE.

[amw]

That's it, enough is enough. Now you're really on my ignore list. For good.

Your call. I'd definitely suggest reading some history books that aren't western anti-communist propaganda though

[Florestan]

Slavery exists now in the world. What are you going to do about it? Doing nothing is VILE.

It's absolutely true that slavery is a reality today. On the other hand, what could an ordinary US, or Israeli, or Romanian citizen, or for that matter any ordinary citizen of the "Western World" do about it? What influence do they have on the politics of those countries where slavery is still practiced de facto, if not de jure?

On the other hand, I do agree that concentrating on the long since gone (legal) slavery in the US and ignoring or minimizing slavery as practiced the very moment I'm typing this post in many parts of the world is not kosher.

And it's not only a "Third World" phenomenon. Heck, I could give you examples of Romanian citizens being treated as virtual slaves --- and especially Romanian women, and especially sexual slaves --- in countries such as Italy, where numerous and well-documented such cases have been revealed by the Italian police itself; a phenomenon, moreover, widespread in the southernmost provinces of Italy, where seasonal agricultural employment gives rise to many outrageous abuses. Think of it: if a top EU country is unable to contain once and for all de facto slavery, what could a Sub-Saharan country do, assuming the most complete willing and determination to do something, which is not always guaranteed?

[Karl Henning]

One Atrocious Summit May Lead to Another

If Trump's meeting with Putin goes as catastrophically wrong as his meeting with Kim, God help us all.

[bwv 1080]

I'll grant you the resource extraction, but a few hundred thousand prisoners in labour camps were not exactly the Soviet Union's engine of growth & the relocation of populations had nothing to do with economics. (Stalin was essentially attempting to erase ethnic & national divisions by encouraging migration from the imperial core to the more distant republics. Didn't work out very well, as one can see in hindsight.) I don't think the PRC even had any kind of forced labour or migration; most of its problems were due to natural disasters (especially the 1959-61 famine) which Mao's government was unable to handle effectively.

The USA is certainly alone in the massive scale of its use of slavery & genocide to accomplish economic growth compared to other countries. I guess the Spanish & British Empires and colonial era Belgium are also on par though, and Nazi Germany would come close if it had lasted longer.

God, that is nearly pure denialism on the Great Leap Forward, it was not a natural disaster, it was the result of Mao's failed attempt to industrialize the PRC.  Also, not minimizing US slavery, but the vast majority of African slaves - about 94% were imported to Brazil and the Caribbean where they were typically worked to death over a period of a few years.

[Karl Henning]

One Atrocious Summit May Lead to Another

If Trump's meeting with Putin goes as catastrophically wrong as his meeting with Kim, God help us all.

Singapore was, Eberstadt believes, probably the greatest diplomatic coup for North Korea since 1950, and a milestone on "the DPRK's road to establishing itself as a permanent nuclear power."  And the sanctions that were the Trump administration's strategy of "maximum pressure" will be difficult to maintain now that a "defanged" — Eberstadt's description — Trump has declared the nuclear threat banished.

The most dangerous moment of the Trump presidency will arrive when he who is constantly gnawed by insecurities and the fear of not seeming what he is not ("strong") realizes how weak and childish he seems to all who cast a cool eye on Singapore's aftermath.  The danger is of his lashing out in wounded vanity.  Meanwhile, this innocent abroad is strutting toward a meeting with the cold-eyed Russian who is continuing to dismantle Europe's geographically largest nation, Ukraine.  He is likely looking ahead to ratcheting up pressure on one of three small nations, Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia, each a member of the NATO alliance that, for the first time in its 69 years, is dealing with a U.S. president who evinces no admiration for what it has accomplished, or any understanding of its revived importance as the hard man in Moscow, who can sniff softness, relishes what Singapore revealed.

[zamyrabyrd]

It's absolutely true that slavery is a reality today. On the other hand, what could an ordinary US, or Israeli, or Romanian citizen, or for that matter any ordinary citizen of the "Western World" do about it? What influence do they have on the politics of those countries where slavery is still practiced de facto, if not de jure?

On the other hand, I do agree that concentrating on the long since gone (legal) slavery in the US and ignoring or minimizing slavery as practiced the very moment I'm typing this post in many parts of the world is not kosher.

And it's not only a "Third World" phenomenon. Heck, I could give you examples of Romanian citizens being treated as virtual slaves --- and especially Romanian women, and especially sexual slaves --- in countries such as Italy, where numerous and well-documented such cases have been revealed by the Italian police itself; a phenomenon, moreover, widespread in the southernmost provinces of Italy, where seasonal agricultural employment gives rise to many outrageous abuses. Think of it: if a top EU country is unable to contain once and for all de facto slavery, what could a Sub-Saharan country do, assuming the most complete willing and determination to do something, which is not always guaranteed?

Slavery is as old as human history. Women were routinely raped as spoils of war.  Men and children were impressed into slavery. The Roman Empire thrived from it. Slavery existed in the Bible but there was a possibility of manumission whereby a slave could gain freedom. This is still rare historically. What about feudalism in Europe at least until the 15th century? Russian serfdom offically ended in 1861. A war was fought to get rid of it in the US.

I don't know what would call working for a pittance in sweat shops like my grandmother did for 40 years, sitting in the same place near a window where she developed a form of skin cancer, where they may have been only one fan in the room in the heat of summer. Or as I mentioned agriculural workers whose lives are still not pretty but one poster thinks is vile to mention. Throw in there mine workers whose work is incredibly hard.

Slavery is a very inefficient economically. The Romans didn't want to get rid of galley slaves in favor of a steam powered ship (so the story goes). Machines have thankfully rescued so much of mankind from grueling labor. Most of these labor saving inventions have come from the scientific spirit of the West, in particular the US.  Ending slavery has been a by-product therefore of a freer intellectual environment.

However, googling up the number of slaves in the world still gives an astonishing figure at least 40 million if not more:
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/19/world/global-slavery-estimates-ilo/index.html

In short, we are lucky if we can listen to, discuss and play music.

[Karl Henning]

[El Tupé's] trade war with China is about to begin. Analysts say it won't be pretty.

[El Presidente Tupé's] first tariffs are set to hit $34 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and Beijing plans to respond with its own levies. So would begin an unprecedented battle between the world's two largest economies — a conflict analysts fear could rattle markets and cripple trade.

[Karl Henning]

Trade wars are good and easy to win.

[Florestan]

Your call. I'd definitely suggest reading some history books that aren't western anti-communist propaganda though

I don' need no "western anti-communist propaganda" to tell me, or interpret for me, what I have experienced myself first-hand. I also don't take lessons in history from people who (1) have never ever for one minute lived in a comunist regime, and (2) have never ever experienced first-hand the "brotherly, proletarian love" that the USSR extended to their own country (in my case, Romania) and which was far worse and more brutal than everything the Tsarist Russia did to us --- and take into account that anti-Tsarist-Russia senrtiment dates in Romania as far back as 1778 and that the 1848 Revolution was undertaken first and foremost against the encroaching "protective power" of Russia much more than against the nominal "suzerain power" of the Ottoman Empire.

While in no way denying that communism has had its share of good things benefitting the common people, I do maintain --- and do defy anyone not having lived under a communist regime to prove me wrong --- that the human and material cost of the communist experiment far exceeds the benefits, and that the so-called "capitalist" countries (I'm talking about European countries first and foremost) got there and even farther with much lesser costs.

I'll emphatically state, write and maintain: anyone who find excuses for Stalin is a thousand times worse than anyone who find excuses for Trump.

[bwv 1080]

I am not sure of the share of good things - the communist regimes all failed in providing a minimum level of food to their populations - one is hard pressed to find a communist country that did not experience devastating famines

[Florestan]

the communist regimes all failed in providing a minimum level of food to their populations

On the long run, yes -- and unavoidably. Otherwise, I can assure you that in Romania in the period between 1970 --- 1980* you could have lived quite decently --- unless you were not going to criticize the regime, that is. 

* when Nixon and de Gaulle themselves legitimized the regime... 

Plus: culturally speaking, the period between 1960 - 1980 was unprecedented when it comes to (1) translating the greatest literary works of the preceding centuries and publishing them in mass editions, and (2) common people being able to go to theater and opera at affordable prices.

[zamyrabyrd]

On the long run, yes -- and unavoidably. Otherwise, I can assure you that in Romania in the period between 1970 --- 1980* you could have lived quite decently --- unless you were not going to criticize the regime, that is. 

* when Nixon and de Gaulle themselves legitimized the regime... 

Plus: culturally speaking, the period between 1960 - 1980 was unprecedented when it comes to (1) translating the greatest literary works of the preceding centuries and publishing them in mass editions, and (2) common people being able to go to theater and opera at affordable prices.

I heard that excellent Russian musicians came to Romania like Richter, ballet dancers, etc.

[bwv 1080]

On the long run, yes -- and unavoidably. Otherwise, I can assure you that in Romania in the period between 1970 --- 1980* you could have lived quite decently --- unless you were not going to criticize the regime, that is. 

* when Nixon and de Gaulle themselves legitimized the regime... 

Plus: culturally speaking, the period between 1960 - 1980 was unprecedented when it comes to (1) translating the greatest literary works of the preceding centuries and publishing them in mass editions, and (2) common people being able to go to theater and opera at affordable prices.

But didnt the state run up an unsustainable amount of foreign debt during the 70s which resulted in a collapse in the 80s?

[Christabel]

God, that is nearly pure denialism on the Great Leap Forward, it was not a natural disaster, it was the result of Mao's failed attempt to industrialize the PRC.  Also, not minimizing US slavery, but the vast majority of African slaves - about 94% were imported to Brazil and the Caribbean where they were typically worked to death over a period of a few years.

When Dr. Thomas Sowell was recently asked on "The Rubin Report" (look for it yourselves) Dave asked him why he abandoned the Left.  His answer was instructive:

FACTS.

[Karl Henning]

Here's how we'll recover from Trump

The non-partisan organization Protect Democracy, appropriate to Independence Day, on Wednesday put out an ambitious proposal entitled, Roadmap for Renewal: A Legislative Blueprint for Protecting our Democracy. It might as well have been titled "What We Do to Fix Trump's Mess," for it posits that the grave damage President Trump has done to our democratic norms and institutions won't be solved by his departure or by voting out the Republican majorities that have enabled him.

"The rise of a U.S. president who fashions himself a strongman in the model of autocrats around the world has been a wakeup call that the guardrails of our democracy may not be as strong as we'd assumed," Protect Democracy's executive director Ian Bassin tells me. "America has never had a perfect democracy, but our story has been an ongoing process of perfecting it, and if we want that to continue we're going to have to learn lessons from this moment and reinforce the guardrails to ensure our republic remains healthy for the next generation."

The introduction to the blueprint explains:

This document proposes a package of legislative measures to restore and shore up the fundamental structures, institutions, and norms of our constitutional democracy​. We propose twenty-one reforms in five categories. ​The first three categories focus on the branches of government: (i) strengthening Congress's capacity to fulfill its constitutional role​; (ii) c​onstraining abuses of executive power​; and (iii) protecting the courts​ as a check on the other branches in order to uphold the constitution.

The other two categories focus on the most important part of our democracy: we the people. The fourth category – protecting inclusive and fact-based democratic dissent, debate, and participation​ – addresses how to make sure the public is accurately informed about our government and able to fully and inclusively participate in the public sphere without fear of threat or intimidation. The final category – modernizing our campaigns and election system to protect and enhance participation and accurately reflect the views of voters​ – focuses on how to ensure that our elections reflect the democratic choices of the country.

The proposals relating to the branches of government include, for example, building up oversight capacity in Congress; disclosure of the basis for use of force when the president commits military forces; "codifying clear prohibitions on improper White House interference in specific-party matters" with the Justice Department; beefing up the Office of Government Ethics; modernizing civil service rules and strengthening protection against retaliation; and ensuring the Census is apolitical and counts everyone in the United States as specified in the Constitution. Other proposals address inadequacies in the War Powers Act and recommend establishing a Congressional Regulation Office "to give Congress independent analytical capacity to assess regulations in a neutral manner and to conduct retrospective reviews."

With regard to protecting dissent and debate, the blueprint recommends: "Clarifying that judicial redress is available in situations where there is political interference in regulatory or enforcement actions against media organizations; prohibiting federal officials from coercing private employers to stifle the political speech of their employees, and private employers from coercing employee speech to curry favor with government actors; and requiring reporting to Congress and the public on contacts between the White House and agencies on party-specific regulatory matters."

In a timely recommendation, the blueprint also urges reform of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol. And in the realm of disinformation are proposals to fund media literacy programs, improve quantity and quality of data the federal government releases, and ensure that "regulatory decisions about media ownership, regulation, and licensing are entirely free from political interference."

The most critical part of the report may be the final set of recommendations relating to campaigns and our election system: "Enacting reforms to the campaign finance enforcement system that close disclosure
loopholes, create a new enforcement and oversight agency or fix the [Federal Election Commission], and reduce opportunities for corruption or the appearance of corruption; requiring states to establish independent redistricting commissions to avoid partisan gerrymandering; and passing the Honest Ads Act, which subjects social media companies that provide platforms for civic discourse to federal regulation and campaign ad disclosure requirements."

The blueprint also urges hardening of our voting machinery. The last batch of reforms in this category only seem partisan because one party committed itself to artificially restricting the electorate and launched a wild goose chase in search of nonexistent, wide-scale voter fraud. In fact both parties should be happy to expand voting in our democracy along these lines:

Enacting legislation to create automatic registration, make voter registration portable between every state, restore voting rights to former prisoners, require that polling location and registration status be available online, and increase federal resources for state and local election boards, possibly through the mechanism set forth in the 21st Century Voting Act; making election day either a national holiday or a weekend – possibly through the Weekend Voting Act, which moves elections from Tuesdays to the first full weekend of November, with elections lasting two full days; reauthorizing and updating struck-down portions of the Voting Rights Act, in order to continue protecting voting rights in the 21st century; and preventing long lines at the polls by setting and enforcing standards regarding the distribution of voting machines and poll workers.

Some of the suggestions will need to await a new Congress or president, others can start now. Bassin notes: "Congress brought about a range of reforms after Watergate from the Church Committee to the Ethics in Government Act. It was as if the country came together and said of Nixon: 'What was that and how do we make sure that doesn't happen again?'" He says, "Some of those reforms, like the War Powers Act, were passed over Nixon's veto; others took place after he left office. We may very well have such a moment again and whether it happens in January of 2021, January of 2019, or even sooner, we need to be ready for it. "

Certain proposals will appeal to people of a certain political persuasion. Eli Lehrer, who heads the libertarian R Street think tank, tells me he doesn't agree with all of the blueprint. However, "The idea of creating a congressional regulation office and having Congress play a role in overseeing the administrative state would be a huge triumph for our constitution and democracy." He notes, "Presidents have clawed power away from the legislature for decades. It remains to be seen how much power Congress can regain. In some cases, as with war powers and immigration, Trump does seem to be intent on grabbing more."

Those on the left will be gratified to see proposals attacking voter suppression and trying to limit presidential use of military force without Congress. Progressives won't see public funding of elections, an anathema to many conservatives. But the proposal, of course, doesn't preclude partisan efforts outside its scope.

"Not everyone will agree with every recommendation. But it's an act of civic courage to step back from the anxieties of every passing tweet and zero in on the underlying structural vulnerabilities that make this moment so scary," Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org. "If we, as a nation, actually have the conversation that Protect Democracy is working to provoke—and if we act on it—then our democratic immune system may just develop the antibodies needed to prevent the next autocratic infection."

What is remarkable is the vast number of policy items on which right, left and centrist Americans should be able to find agreement. The focus on encouraging robust debate, countering foreign influence in elections, promoting fact-based government, protecting a free press, cutting back on the dramatic expansion of executive power and strengthening a nonpartisan justice system should find near universal praise — except for those, of course, who have cheered Trump as he has tried to crush each one of these vital aspects of our democratic system.

"Americans of all political stripes who care about our democracy recognize that it has been eroding — that started before Trump, but Trump is exacerbating it. Our democracy will not protect itself," Bassin argues. "We as citizens need to do our jobs, including by ensuring that our representatives in Congress take this challenge seriously and reinvest in the core principles that animate our Constitution and have made America great for generations."

If the scourge of Trump sets off a period of intense reform and dramatic renewal of our democracy, it will, we pray, make Trump into a blip in American history, not the beginning of our decline as the world's leading democracy.

[bwv 1080]

In short, congress reassuming responsibility for all the powers they surrendered to the executive branch over the past half century.   

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

While in no way denying that communism has had its share of good things benefitting the common people, I do maintain --- and do defy anyone not having lived under a communist regime to prove me wrong --- that the human and material cost of the communist experiment far exceeds the benefits, and that the so-called "capitalist" countries (I'm talking about European countries first and foremost) got there and even farther with much lesser costs.

I agree with this statement. As a connoisseur of historical ironies, I note that the greatest beneficiaries of "actually existing socialism" were the workers in Western countries. The threat of communism forced capitalists to make concessions in their own self-interest.

Plus: culturally speaking, the period between 1960 - 1980 was unprecedented when it comes to (1) translating the greatest literary works of the preceding centuries and publishing them in mass editions, and (2) common people being able to go to theater and opera at affordable prices.

And a further irony - this shows that Communists had a much healthier view of past achievements than a lot of modern liberals do. In the "people's democracies," even though Shakespeare and Bach and Tolstoy may have been products of oppressive class-based societies, they were respected as great geniuses none the less, and their work was considered a patrimony that should be accessible to everyone, including the working classes. Their work was not considered part of some Western plot to oppress women and "people of color."

[bwv 1080]

I agree with this statement. As a connoisseur of historical ironies, I note that the greatest beneficiaries of "actually existing socialism" were the workers in Western countries. The threat of communism forced capitalists to make concessions in their own self-interest.

the threat of communism also spurred the rise of fascism and was a wedge against peaceful democratic socialist parties, both by the right and far left.  Stalin killed far more ideological socialists than all the Fascist parties combined.  I do not think Bolshevism had any positive results other than perhaps a state ruthless enough to spend the lives necessary to win a war of attrition against Nazi Germany.