USA Politics (redux)

Started by bhodges, November 10, 2020, 01:09:34 PM

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Florestan

Quote from: Todd on December 05, 2020, 08:14:39 AM
More Hitler, please. 

Anyone remember the (in)famous Carlos the Jackal? He was born Ilyich Sanchez and had two brothers: Vladimir Sanchez and Lenin Sanchez.

Truly politics is bad for people's mental health. Music, on the other hand, produces Mozart Guarneri and his brothers Verdi Guarneri and Rossini Guarneri.  :D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

71 dB

#821
Quote from: steve ridgway on December 05, 2020, 07:54:45 AM
Yes, it could be a name given out of innocent backwater ignorance. As the BBC say,

Namibia is a former German colony and there are still reminders of that time in some placenames. There is also a small German-speaking minority.

"My father named me after this man. He probably didn't understand what Adolf Hitler stood for," Mr Uunona told Bild.

"It was a very normal name for me as a child. It was not until I was growing up that I realised that this man wanted to subjugate the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things."


My paternal grandfather was an army officer and got a medal of honour from Hitler.  :P My name is the same as my grandfather's name. My name is extremely rare. Only I and my grandfather had it. I never met him, because he passed away very young over a decade before I was born.
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Florestan

Quote from: 71 dB on December 05, 2020, 08:33:54 AM
My father's father was an army officer and got a medal of honour from Hitler.  :P My name is the same as my father's father's name. My name is extremely rare. Only I and my father's father had it. I never met him, because he passed away very young over a decade before I was born.

Why didn't you write "my grandfather", just as everybody else would have written?  ???

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

71 dB

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:38:12 AM
Why didn't you write "my grandfather", just as everybody else would have written?  ???

Instead of the Hitler connection people are shocked by my crappy grammar? I like father's father because it tells he is not from my mothers side (mother's father).
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Florestan

#824
Quote from: 71 dB on December 05, 2020, 08:40:55 AM
Instead of the Hitler connection people are shocked by my crappy grammar? I like father's father because it tells he is not from my mothers side (mother's father).

Paternal grandfather, then.  ;)

And why would I be shocked by your paternal grandfather's being decorated by Hitler? King Michael of Romania was decorated by Stalin.  ;D

Bravery is bravery, regardless of who acknowledges it. I greatly admire Finland and Marshall President Mannerheim for their courage and determination to fight the Soviet aggression.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

drogulus


     There are people who are harmed by an obsessive preoccupation with sports, too. Whether it's nature or nurture, I can't say. Most of us are unharmed by it. I'm happy if my interests only harm others.

     I'll try to be serious, for now. My understanding of fascism is behavioral more than spectral. The left/right distinctions that can apply to democrats, rule of law and constitutional factions don't fit Mussolini or Hitler. They attack the democratic order with its own tools and combine programmatic elements from both the left and right.
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71 dB

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:45:31 AM
Paternal grandfather, then.  ;)

Okay, thanks. I'll adopt that terminology. ;)

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:45:31 AMAnd why would I be shocked by your paternal grandfather's being decorated by Hitler? King Michael of Romania was decorated by Stalin.  ;D

Bravery is bravery, regardless of who acknowledges it. I greatly admire Finland and Marshall President Mannerheim for their courage and determination to fight the Soviet aggression.

It's your own business what shocks you. People get shocked for whatever reason and the name Hitler has been an effective way to shock for historical reason. I'm glad if people are not shocked. I don't need to "hide" my paternal grandfather.
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Florestan

Quote from: 71 dB on December 05, 2020, 08:51:20 AM
It's your own business what shocks you. People get shocked for whatever reason and the name Hitler has been an effective way to shock for historical reason. I'm glad if people are not shocked. I don't need to "hide" my paternal grandfather.

|You got me completely wrong. If anything, my post was absolutely against "hiding" your paternal grandfather. He bravely fought for his country and I respectfully bow to his memory.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: drogulus on December 05, 2020, 08:48:47 AM
    My understanding of fascism is behavioral more than spectral. The left/right distinctions that can apply to democrats, rule of law and constitutional factions don't fit Mussolini or Hitler. They attack the democratic order with its own tools and combine programmatic elements from both the left and right.

You recently posted a link in which several professors were asked whether Trump is a fascist. Every single one of them answered "no". Why do you still keep flogging this dead horse?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

steve ridgway

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:16:40 AM
I didn't mean to be pedantic or offensive. If I sounded like that I apologize.

No it didn't sound like that. I don't identify as English to the point I can't laugh at them.

Florestan

Quote from: steve ridgway on December 05, 2020, 09:14:59 AM
No it didn't sound like that. I don't identify as English to the point I can't laugh at them.

I am relieved.  :-*
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

drogulus

#831
     
Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:59:25 AM
You recently posted a link in which several professors were asked whether Trump is a fascist. Every single one of them answered "no". Why do you still keep flogging this dead horse?

     It's not dead until I kill it. What Trump may not quite be doesn't tell you what he quite is. That's the question I'm exploring. The experts who were queried indicated that there's a wider group of authoritarians who attack lawful democratic orders that don't tick all the fascist boxes as we know them from history. I have mentioned this before.

     If scholars of authoritarianism are interested in how Trump fits, I'm not surprised. They showed little interest in claims that conservatives are really fascists, and that too is not surprising. I think you are incurious about actual living horses.

     For the curious, here's an alternative view that has merit:

     "Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism"

DK: The historian Timothy Snyder, among other prominent public intellectuals, has argued that Trump's approach to the presidency resembles that of 20th-century dictators like Hitler or Mussolini. The obvious counter is that Trump is going to submit to the election result, but are people like Snyder completely off-base? Trump may be lazy and incompetent, and US institutions may be stronger than some predicted, but is it fair to characterize Trump and his hardcore supporters as far-right, illiberal, even fascist, and at the very least a test of how much strain the Constitution can endure?

CR: There is no question, in my mind, that Trump and his supporters are far-right and illiberal. I've said so from the beginning. One of my differences with Snyder and people who subscribe to the view that Trump is a fascist or authoritarian is that their desire to call Trump that often arises from a failure to understand conservatism more generally, which has always been a far-right and illiberal and anti-liberal form of politics. Many of the attributes people decry in Trump and his followers were primary features of the conservatism I was describing in The Reactionary Mind (and got a lot of flak from liberals for so describing). To my mind, the comparisons between Trump and Hitler or Mussolini come from people who only began thinking about American conservatism and the Republican Party when Trump came along.


     
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71 dB

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 08:55:40 AM
|You got me completely wrong. If anything, my post was absolutely against "hiding" your paternal grandfather. He bravely fought for his country and I respectfully bow to his memory.

I doubt he "fought" that much as an officer, but I'm sure he did his job well as a part of the chain of command.
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Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
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71 dB

Quote from: Todd on December 05, 2020, 07:30:24 AM
Something that may be of help to some people: Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being

After the last 4 years I am ready to agree.

However, I think total ignorance of politics is also bad.
Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening.
Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
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Florestan

Quote from: drogulus on December 05, 2020, 10:06:48 AM
     
     It's not dead until I kill it.

By all means, carry on.

QuoteWhat Trump may not quite be doesn't tell you what he quite is.

Trump is a former USA President.

QuoteThat's the question I'm exploring.

By all means, carry on.



Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: 71 dB on December 05, 2020, 10:15:39 AM
I doubt he "fought" that much as an officer

Do you think Hitler decorated him for nothing?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Todd

Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 11:00:04 AMTrump is a former USA President.


Not until 12:00 PM on January 20, 2021.  Before then, he can do much good.  Like this:

Trump orders most US troops out of Somalia

No doubt, some warmongers will reel at the mere notion of such US troop drawdowns.
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

Florestan

Quote from: drogulus on December 05, 2020, 10:06:48 AM
     
     "Almost the Complete Opposite of Fascism"



Prof. Corey Robin makes lots of salient points and a few stupid ones (the most blatant of the latter being to imply that the French Revolution was about "the democratic emancipation of the commoner"). Bottom line, his conclusion is that Trump is not a fascist.

By all means, though, keep exploring the idea, and keep keeping the dead horse alive.

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

ritter

#838
Quote from: Florestan on December 05, 2020, 11:59:35 AM
Prof. Corey Robin makes lots of salient points and a few stupid ones (the most blatant of the latter being to imply that the French Revolution was about "the democratic emancipation of the commoner"). Bottom line, his conclusion is that Trump is not a fascist.

By all means, though, keep exploring the idea, and keep keeping the dead horse alive.
Hasn't it occurred to you that many of Mr. Trump's actions and, most particularly, statements do show a clearly authoritarian and anti-democratic, if not openly  fascist, strain, and that it is—as should be expected—the strength of the US institutions that has prevented this from taking a, let's say, sourer turn?

Florestan

Quote from: ritter on December 05, 2020, 12:12:12 PM
Hasn't it occurred to you that many of Mr. Trump's actions and, most particularly, statements do show a clearly authoritarian and anti-democratic, if not openly  fascist, strain,

Honestly, my friend, no, it hasn't.

Re: his actions --- I'd like to be shown which of his actions were either unconstitutional according to the US Constitution, or broke the US statutory laws.

Re: his statements --- he is a foulmouthed idiot, but it takes much, much, much more than that to make a fascist.

Quoteit is—as should be expected—the strength of the US institutions that has prevented this from taking a, let's say, a sourer turn?

I cannot read minds, and neither can you --- but I'm willing to bet he never ever contemplated taking a sourer turn. He took his chances within the US constitutional and legal frame --- and lost. Heck, can you imagine Mussolini or Hitler holding free elections and challenging their unfavorable results in courts? No, really, ponder just this for a second: holding free elections and then challenging the results in courts and losing --- can you imagine anything more opposite to fascism? I can't, honestly.


Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini