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

[Wendell_E]

Scott Pruitt has resigned.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-trump.html

[Zeus]

One down, a dozen to go.

The fish rots from the head.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

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. 

Yeah, true also. I was thinking mainly of the period 1945-90.

Anyway, don't want to derail this Trump-obsessed thread, so I think I'll bow out.

[bwv 1080]

Anyway, don't want to derail this Trump-obsessed thread, so I think I'll bow out.

Why not? The digressions are the only interesting things here

[eljr]

Yeah, true also. I was thinking mainly of the period 1945-90.

Anyway, don't want to derail this Trump-obsessed thread, so I think I'll bow out.

FYI, the thread title is "Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)"

To me, posting about Trump in a dedicated Trump thread does not seem unreasonable.

[eljr]

Does anyone else think we should place a tarp over the Statue of Liberty until this is true again?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me"

[Daverz]

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.

I understand attitude of Soviet Bloc authorities towards Bach and other Western classical music to have been much more ambivalent than this, and not just toward the sacred works.  I'm not coming up with any useful discussions of this online at the moment.

Their work was not considered part of some Western plot to oppress women and "people of color."

By whom?  Not by any significant number of liberals.  Not by anyone with any meaningful authority.  And why is people of color in scare quotes?

The major American sin toward our own musical legacy is simple indifference and neglect.

[SimonNZ]

https://www.uschamber.com/tariffs

US Chamber Of Commerce interactive map shows impacts of Trump trade war

[SimonNZ]

Conservative columnist: I want Democrats to take over Congress

"Conservative columnist Max Boot said he wants Democrats to retake control of both chambers of Congress in November's midterm elections. Boot, a frequent critic of President Trump, wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday that he was joining other prominent conservatives who have pledged to vote against the party.

The GOP is now a "white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe," Boot wrote. "If you're part of that fringe, what should you do?" he asked. Boot said he is rooting for a Democratic takeover in both the House and Senate. "Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt," Boot wrote."

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

By whom?  Not by any significant number of liberals.  Not by anyone with any meaningful authority.

Which is why I said "a lot," which is non-specific. But you can find abundant examples of this stuff. This was brought to my attention the other day:

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/opinion/2018/06/26/ode-to-joy-has-an-odious-history-lets-give-beethovens-most-overplayed-symphony-a-rest.html

You might also look up the musicologist Susan McClary, and her own rather peculiar interpretation of LvB #9. But there are tons of such examples, which you can find easily enough if you're interested.

And why is people of color in scare quotes?

Because it's a dumb term. First, white is a color. Second, it just sounds stilted, like saying "wine of red" or "jeans of blue."

[SimonNZ]

[Daverz]

Which is why I said "a lot," which is non-specific. But you can find abundant examples of this stuff. This was brought to my attention the other day:

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/opinion/2018/06/26/ode-to-joy-has-an-odious-history-lets-give-beethovens-most-overplayed-symphony-a-rest.html

You might also look up the musicologist Susan McClary, and her own rather peculiar interpretation of LvB #9. But there are tons of such examples, which you can find easily enough if you're interested.

Yup, anyone can pick a lot of nuts on the internet.

This is not "a lot of liberals". 

Because it's a dumb term. First, white is a color. Second, it just sounds stilted, like saying "wine of red" or "jeans of blue."

I don't care for the term much, but it's still has a useful and fairly clear meaning.

[SimonNZ]

Pruitt's resignation letter:

[André]

Pruitt's resignation letter:

I can hear the harp, organ and choir of evangelicals angels in the background...

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Yup, anyone can pick a lot of nuts on the internet.

This is not "a lot of liberals". 

Whatever - I'm not going to get into an argument based on numbers, the trend is there if you want to dig deeper. But I do want to elaborate on a previous statement, in response to this:

I understand attitude of Soviet Bloc authorities towards Bach and other Western classical music to have been much more ambivalent than this, and not just toward the sacred works.  I'm not coming up with any useful discussions of this online at the moment.

It's a big issue, and you're probably not going to find a lot online on this, and much of the useful literature is not in English anyway. But basically, there was usually an early period of "revolutionary enthusiasm" when Bolsheviks and their allies take joy in toppling "bourgeois" idols and setting up their own "proletarian art," followed by a reaction in which tradition is re-imposed: usually (and again an irony here) art is supposed to look like a typical European product of the period 1860-1900 in terms of its form. This opens the door to a re-introduction of the classics.

Dostoevsky was a strident anti-radical, and a religious nationalist and chauvinist. He was also readily available and highly respected in the USSR, despite the political incorrectness of his views. Nobody in the USSR as far as I know was trying to tear him down or remove him from libraries because of this.

[Daverz]

Whatever - I'm not going to get into an argument based on numbers, the trend is there if you want to dig deeper.

I'm sorry, but there is no trend of liberals trying to tear down Western art music except in your imagination.

[Zeus]

Giant baby Trump to fly over London.



Article here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-44732754

Some quips from the article:

On Twitter former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the plan was "the biggest insult to a sitting US President ever".

Under the plans the inflatable will be allowed to fly for two hours on the morning of Friday 13 July.

Leo Murray, who is behind the crowdfunded idea, said: "[Mr Trump] really seems to hate it when people make fun of him.

"So when he visits the UK on Friday, we want to make sure he knows that all of Britain is looking down on him and laughing at him.

Thank you Londoners!  You are being true friends to the United States.  I wish more people around here had your good sense.

[Florestan]

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

The collapse was provoked not as much by the debt itself as by Ceausescu's demented decision to pay it all before due time.

Bottom line, communism was a disastrous experiment whose cost in ruined human lives and exhausted resources far offset any benefits. Whoever sincerely believes it is still a viable solution to world's problems is at best a naive and at worst an idiot.

[Florestan]

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/opinion/2018/06/26/ode-to-joy-has-an-odious-history-lets-give-beethovens-most-overplayed-symphony-a-rest.html

What imbecile.

[Florestan]

basically, there was usually an early period of "revolutionary enthusiasm" when Bolsheviks and their allies take joy in toppling "bourgeois" idols and setting up their own "proletarian art," followed by a reaction in which tradition is re-imposed: usually (and again an irony here) art is supposed to look like a typical European product of the period 1860-1900 in terms of its form. This opens the door to a re-introduction of the classics.

True. It happened this way in Romania too. The worst period in this respect was the 50s, when a lot of Romanian and foreign cultural icons of the past were denigrated as "bourgeois reactionaries". A gradual but steady change began in the early 60s.