President Trump is a “stress test” on the American system of government. Lord knows I am as critical of the U.S. as anyone else, but you have to give us credit. The fact that the U.S. government is plugging away and the economy is doing well despite the fact that Trump is crazy serves as testimony to the durability of the United States.
The President Is Unhinged Yet We Aren’t All Dead Yet and That’s Kind of Amazing
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The US and global economies are controlled by a relatively few persons who are insanely avaricious and compassionless. So why is His Hairness to be considered so unique?
For a good summary listen to the Project Censored podcast “Giant – The Global Power Elite” at the link below. Peter Phillips gives a preview of his upcoming book describing/identifying the denizens of global power elite and the effect their decisions have on the world’s population.
If you don’t have time, current figures on that effect are: 80% of the world’s population live on less than $10/day and 50% live on less than $2.50/day. Tell me that’s not insane.
I strongly recommend any and all other podcasts at the link.
projectcensored.org/radio/
Read places like Zero Hedge daily. Read through the comments. Many people are up on economic avarice and robbery and will post eye opening links to their favorite alternative authors, podcasts, Youtube videos, so on.
Honestly people forget that conspiracy sites like What Really Happened, Rense, and Alex Jones have literally millions of followers with nothing better to do than track the comings and goings of those they consider powerful manipulators.
Even if only 1% of their facts are correct that is a lot of information to sift through and organize.
One of the issues I have is their being a single overarching conspiracy with a single goal. Factually there would be nearly as many conspiracies as there members in contact with each other. Everyone attempting to profit, everyone self interested. Everyone with their own vision of what should be happening and where events should be directed.
Right now we see the One World Government US/Nothern Europe alliance bumping against the Multi-polar Russia and Chinese. Do they really want those of White European descent to dictate how they govern their citizens? Notice that Africa and the majority of the Middle east have virtually no say in these policies.
But the Saudi’s are starting to shift allegiance, the Turks want in on the game as does Iran. We all know where Israel stands.
“The Five Eyes, often abbreviated as FVEY, is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States” What is interesting here is all the others except the US are influenced by England. Consider that Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all have CROWN PROSECUTORS. Also that a fair majority of world governments have royalty at the top.
If you expect a reply to your reply, keep the verbiage to fewer than 3000 words and the themes to fewer than 5-10.
Conspiracy is your word, not mine nor mi claim.
THE problem is that conspiracy implies illegal activity while the cooperation among the economic elite is generally, completely legal … they having purchased the entities that make the laws.
falco
con·spir·a·cy
a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
the action of plotting or conspiring.
A conspiracy is a secret agreement by people to commit something wrong or illegal. Depending on the circumstances, a conspiracy may be a crime, or a civil wrong
The economy is not “chugging along”. We have nearly 1/3 of US citizens who have dropped out of the workforce. Child hunger and child homelessness is at an all time high. There are entire tent cities of the homeless in every state. The ONLY jobs created are part time service jobs. Subprime auto loans are being forfeited on. Home prices and rents are at all time highs. And the Plunge Protection team steps in when the stock market tanks.
Just because the Stock market “SEEMS” to be climbing doesn’t mean the underlying stats are not rotten. We haven’t even entered into the full baby boomer retirement drain yet.
Second it truly demeans the author to use an umbrella term like “insane”. I can understand the sour grapes at Trump winning almost every battle. But to demonize a person in such a way in to SERIOUSLY UNDERESTIMATE that person.
It’s a fools mistake.
“There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.”
― Lao Tzu
To EW Glick,
A couple threads ago you suggested the US system only had some “flaws.”
Please feel free to make up your mind!
Quote that for me.
In context please.
To EWG:
Hint: comic on Millennials/Boomers/Capitalism.
falco
Do you speak English natively?
Definition of quote
to repeat a passage from especially in substantiation or illustration
con·text
the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.
Have someone with a better grasp of English explain those terms to you.
Then post your example with quotation marks and in what the quote was in response to.
Here is a link to Weiner dogs,
http://www.sheknows.com/pets-and-animals/articles/1053529/weiner-dog-costumes
OK, so I’ll assume you checked it out, realized you change opinions as frequently as His Hairness, have no memory of it, and can’t come up with an excuse for the flip flop.
Falco
I have literally no clue wtf you mean?
I’m assuming the weiner dog costumes, they were oh so cute, distracted you thus the lack of a salient point.
Trump is broadly considered insane by Democrats because he makes explicit the violence of imperialism that the Democrat electorate does not recognize in its elected office holders.
Recognizing that “Information is precisely that which reduces uncertainty,” the people (lower case p) are no less informed by the lack of information from Trump (by means of his contradictory statements) than by Obama (by means of his public suppression of the contradictory in his public pronouncements in relation to his violence inciting actions).
So, at this time, Trump is more worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than Obama ever was, ever since the time it was awarded to him.
Humans are now facing imminent extinction, both by nuclear war and by environmental destruction as a consequence of our technological “progress”.
The lessening of the possibility of the most immediate possible cause of human extinction, nuclear war, by meeting with those with whom it is most probable, must be seen as a positive in comparison to the positions of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
The Democrat’s war plans may have been temporarily derailed by Trump’s proposed meetings with other nuclear powers, despite the demonizing of these approaches as collusion.
“Recognizing that “Information is precisely that which reduces uncertainty,” the people (lower case p) are no less informed by the lack of information from Trump (by means of his contradictory statements) ”
I always thought Peter O’Tooles Henry II in the Lion in Winter represented a portrayal of real power. Plus it’s the ultimate Christmas film.
( If you can track down a copy of The Madwoman of Chaillot Danny Kaye’s rendition of the Ragpicker during the trial is a stunningly deep insight into the mind of the rich and powerful)
I found this years ago. Only recently did I grasp the true genius of the plan,
“Oct 6 1014
Czar Samuil of Bulgaria dies after an army of 15,000 of his men is returned, blinded by his enemy Emperor Basil of the Byzantine Empire. One out of every hundred of his men was permitted to keep one eye, such that they were able to return home. For this victory Basil earned the title Bulgaroctonus, slayer of Bulgars. “.
I don’t think there is any public indication thus far that Trump is either crazy or stupid in the usual, ‘street’ meanings of these words.
Yeah, the ‘durability’ or ‘inertia’ of this country gives me hope that I’ll die in bed rather than in a food riot.
There is a lot of good here in the ol’ USA. Our biggest problems are those caused by our “leaders” and their leash holders. i.e. a very small minority. Perhaps it’s time to prescribe Dr. Guillotine’s Permanent Headache Cure …
Oh, and Trump is absolutely batshit insane. Unlike the QAnon folks, I don’t think it’s a brilliant ruse to hide his true brilliance. (They said that about dumbya, too. Look where that got us. )
CrazyH
Once again the average IQ of US citizens is 100. There is roughly 350 million citizens.
Half of those have an IQ of roughly 50.
“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV)
American Psychiatric Association, 1994
V62.89 Borderline Intellectual Functioning IQ 71-84
317 Mild Mental Retardation IQ 50-55 to approximately 70
318.0 Moderate Retardation IQ 35-40 to 50-55
318.1 Severe Mental Retardation IQ 20-25 to 35-40
318.2 Profound Mental Retardation IQ below 20 or 25
The terms Educable Mentally Retarded and Trainable Mentally Retarded used in special education are roughly equivalent to DSM classifications for mild and moderate mental retardation, respectively. The DSM diagnostic criteria further require an assessment and determination of impairment in adaptive functioning in order to make a diagnosis of mental retardation. ”
Every political party has roughly 30% that are true believers.
That is 60% of the eligible voters. That leaves 40% undecided.
“Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome.
Groupshift is the phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual members of a group are exaggerated toward a more extreme position.
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the losing of self-awareness in groups. Theories of deindividuation propose that it is a psychological state of decreased self-evaluation and decreased evaluation apprehension that causes abnormal collective behavior.”
The above is why you see up and down voting on various sites. People not only need to fit in but are easily manipulated.
Solomon Asch conformity experiments
“To Asch’s surprise, 37 of the 50 subjects conformed themselves to the ‘obviously erroneous’ answers given by the other group members at least once, and 14 of them conformed on more than 6 of the ‘staged’ trials. When faced with a unanimous wrong answer by the other group members, the mean subject conformed on 4 of the ‘staged’ trials.
Asch was disturbed by these results: “The tendency to conformity in our society is so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black. This is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct.
…
Why did most subjects conform so readily? When they were interviewed after the experiment, most of them said that they did not really believe their conforming answers, but had gone along with the group for fear of being ridiculed or thought “peculiar.” A few of them said that they really did believe the group’s answers were correct. ”
We have met the enemy and he is us.
( Read Harrison Bergeron great story that nails “equality”)
““After a while you’ll think no thought the others do not think. You’ll know no word the others can’t say. And you’ll do things because the others do them. You’ll feel the danger in any difference whatever-a danger to the crowd of like-thinking, like-acting men…Once in a while there is a man who won’t do what is demanded of him, and do you know what happens? The whole machine devotes itself coldly to the destruction of his difference. They’ll beat your spirit and your nerves, your body and your mind, with iron rods until the dangerous difference goes out of you. And if you can’t finally give in, they’ll vomit you up and leave you stinking outside–neither part of themselves, nor yet free…They only do it to protect themselves. A thing so triumphantly illogical, so beautifully senseless as an army can’t allow a question to weaken it.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden”
The I.Q. of my students ranges from 71 to 85.
Is this a population that we want to see grow?
«Once again the average IQ of US citizens is 100. There is [Sic !] roughly 350 million citizens. Half of those have an IQ of roughly 50.» Once again, «EvilWizardGlick» you fail utterly to understand how IQ scores are normalised. While by definition, half of a given population has a score of 100 (a score, which, by the way, says nothing about their intelligence in any absolute sense), it is definitely not the case that «half of those have an IQ of roughly 50». Perhaps rather than publicly revealing your ignorance, you might want learn something about how IQ scores work :
Normal Distribution & IQ Scores
The properties of the normal distribution apply to IQ scores:
50% of IQ scores fall between 90 and 110
70% of IQ scores fall between 85 and 115
95% of IQ scores fall between 70 and 130
99.5% of IQ scores fall between 60 and 140
I e, more than 99.5 % of the population have an IQ above 60….
Henri
Uh, dude – the distribution of IQ is a bell curve. While half are above & below the median, the same is not true of the rat tails.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
Every page I Google lists the AVERAGE US IQ as 98.
Unless you mean this Bell Curve
https://www.intelltheory.com/bellcurve.shtml
“Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability – East Asians typically earn higher IQ scores than white Americans, especially in the verbal intelligence areas. African-Americans typically earn IQ scores one full standard deviation below those of white Americans. The IQ difference between African-Americans and whites remains at all levels of socioeconomic status (SES), and is even more pronounced at higher levels of SES. Recent narrowing of the average IQ gap between black and white Americans (about 3 IQ points) is attributed to a lessening of low black scores and not an overall improvement in black scores on average. The debate over genes versus environment influences on the race IQ gap is acknowledged.
The Demography of Intelligence – Mounting evidence indicates that demographic trends are exerting downward pressure on the distribution of cognitive ability in the United States and that the pressures are strong enough to have social consequences. Birth rates among highly educated women are falling faster than those of low IQ women. The IQ of the average immigrant of today is 95, lower than the national average, but more importantly the new immigrants are less brave, less hard working, less imaginative, and less self-starting than many of the immigrant groups of the past.
Social Behavior and the Prevalence of Low Cognitive Ability – For most of the worst social problems of our time, the people who have the problem are heavily concentrated in the lower portion of the cognitive ability spectrum. Solutions designed to solve or mitigate any of these problems must accommodate, even be focused towards, the low cognitive ability profile if they are to have any hope of succeeding.”
C.M. Kornbluth made the same observation in his 1951 story The Marching Morons.
Which is well before Idiocracy.
If the mean (average) of a set of numbers is 100 and 1/2 of those numbers are equal to 50 (either all exactly 50 or average 50), then the other half of that set must average at 150.
1/2 times 50 plus 1/2 times 150 equals 100.
25 +75 = 100.
This misuse of IQ numbers implies that 50% of the population have on average an IQ of 150.
I know many Americans, I have lived with Americans, I have been friends of Americans and I will swear that one half of them are not super geniuses.
@Glenn
… although I could be persuaded that 1/4 of the population has IQs lower than 50 …
😀 🙂 😀
“Only one percent of the population is capable of independent thought, and only one percent of those bother to do so” – Robert Heinlein, sorta – I can’t find the original but this is close.
@Glenn
> I will swear that one half of them are not super geniuses.
… math notwithstanding, I could be persuaded that 1/4 of the population has IQs lower than 50 …
😀 🙂 😀
“Only one percent of the population is capable of independent thought, and only one percent of those bother to do so” – Robert Heinlein, sorta – I can’t find the original but this is close.
@Wiz – two things:
If you want to argue math, you need to understand math. It’s not subjective, it’s not a matter of opinion, it is consistent, independently verifiable, and reproducible.
Secondly, what you are posting about is not ‘intelligence’ so much as ‘cultural bias’
Tell me how well you do on this test:
http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/ref/collection/protests/id/349
@CH
“Perhaps it’s time to prescribe Dr. Guillotine’s Permanent Headach Cure.”
Are you calling for the assassination of this country’s leaders?
“Trump is absolutely bat s hit insane.”
Ending “Catch and Release”
Making TPS temporary
Ending CAM
Putting the Guard on the southern border
Limiting refugees
Distributing food boxes in lieu of EBT Cards
Putting the able-bodied to work
Sanity!
All:
John Oliver’s program showed a clip the other day of Trump at Washington, Michigan. And when Trump mentioned the mainstream media, the audience booed loudly. Today, on the NYPost site, I see that the Tom Brokaw letter of support signed by those 115 women? It’s apparently coerced. The women (the story says) signed it because they feared recriminations later if they did not. Today, on the NYTimes site, I see that their metro editor has resigned. The reason why? It’s being withheld.
I understand that the Post story may not be accurate (perhaps it’s 100% accurate; I don’t know either way). And I understand that privacy (at least for New York Times higher-ups) exists. The problem isn’t one little thing from one media outlet. It’s the collectively arrogant and tone-deaf attitude the media bigs express over and over. It’s all the articles in the Times about $900,000 condos and luxe weddings for MBAs from Wharton and their “soul mates” from Vassar. Record Store Day was just a couple weeks ago. The Times had nothing about it (if they did, I missed it totally). I dislike and distrust the Times because they are not interested in my portion of the American culture. They are not interested in defending me, supporting me, or helping me and those like me toward a more stable future. The Times panders to the DNC and HRC because it means they’ll get invited to the right cocktail parties and be given access to the right tips so they can pretend to be great journalists when all they’re really doing is being handed the answer sheet. I have more respect for the person who studied her ass off and got a 90% than I’ll ever have for the Times reporters who “ace” the test with a 100% because they memorized the answers before the test was handed out.
The people in Michigan who booed? They have legitimate reasons for booing. The Times is never, not ever, going to look in the mirror and accept a genuine critique of their favoritisms and back-room social-climbing secret dealing.
I dislike Trump because he’s incoherent. He’s Reagan without the natural ease in front of the camera. He’s Dubya without the eloquence. His positions lack nuance. But occasionally, by chance, he gets it right.
The border wall? Complete insanity. But Trump is absolutely right about border security. It isn’t that the Mexicans coming over the border illegally are a threat (a small number, sure, but the majority are no more problematic security-wise than the average American). It’s that the issue has been inarticulately glommed onto by both sides.
First, take a look at the immigration sites for various countries. They all boil down to this: UNLESS you can prove to OUR satisfaction that your return to your country of origin will result in your death, we only want you if you have some skill set we need. If you cannot carry your own weight, you will have to go. Also, we expect you to speak one of our official languages.
If I wanted to emigrate to Canada, eh, I would probably be refused because I only have a master’s degree, speak English fluently and French with some difficulty. I am not rich. I am too old and my skills are not in highly desired fields. I see no one chanting and holding signs about ageism in Canada Immigration Policy. Oddly enough, if I could prove Jewish ancestry, Israel would greet me with a passport and universal health care at the Tel Aviv airport.
That’s what I mean about nuanced discussion. Everyone screams about Trump, but no one puts it in context with other countries and their policies toward the same issue and tries for a discussion that tries to clarify what’s really going on.
And that’s the problem. Not Trump.