Trump

[FlameBlade]

So. Thoughts on PR?

[Stan]

[FlameBlade]

[Stan]

[Phoebe]

[Bonefish]

I am hopeful. Elon Musk's proposal to over-all their infrastructure with a more modern one strikes me as an interesting idea. Not only do we get to upgrade their infrastructure(which, was shitty before), we get to create an economic boom for them. It'd be nice to have the government's help on this, but... well, Trump.

[Phoebe]

I hope any of that comes to pass. It seems like we're going to lose a lot of people to a bad death they didn't have to experience, because we can't get it together as a people. Even when we know the goal and the obstacles ahead of time. In the broader context of climate change it's like, well, we're doomed. The collective isn't going to get it together enough to prevent all kinds of pointless preventable suffering. We're just seat-of-pants flyers, poor flyers. People still have bad contaminated water in dozens of U.S. cities where the problem seems pretty darn easily fixable.

[mimekiller]

For anyone who thinks President Pence would be better

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 ... dent-pence

[Iantha]

I don't think that many people here would argue that Pence is better.

[Mike]

Pence is equally horrible in most respects, but more predictable and less likely to accidentally start WWIII.

[Phoebe]

So many difficult ethical issues raised here. If you're going to have nukes, you can't have people in the chain of command who are going to flake out on you and not be willing to say yes when the hard moment comes. But if you're going to have nukes, you can't have an incompetent boob prone to totally irrational hysteria and mendacity making the decision.

There are obviously situations where making a pre-emptive strike on North Korea would be totally and utterly wrong and immoral. But then there are situations where we might have to retaliate if North Korea is going to nuke us or South Korea or Japan or someone, and if you're the number 4 guy/gal on that chain, how do you trust which situation you're in unless you can trust everybody else in the chain above you completely?

[Bonefish]

[Mike]

I don't think Trump will intentionally start a war. I don't think he would seriously go for a first-strike on anyone. This isn't about a madman with his finger on the button. This is about a complete incompetent who doesn't understand even the basics of international politics and diplomacy who is busy undermining years of work and careful balance. This is about an imbecile who, through his own ignorance and pettiness, is unwittingly destabilizing the entire planet.

I think Trump is working his hardest to antagonize North Korea, a place where the ruler DOES have dictatorial power and is known for being irrational by world standards. Trump has made several statements that tell North Korea that the time or talk is over, negotiations don't work, "there's only one thing Little Rocket Man understands." These are not even veiled threats. They are open threats. If Kim feels backed into a corner, it is not unreasonable to think that he would unleash the full might of his military on South Korea at the first perceived military aggression from the U.S. Leave aside all the hoopla about his nukes and missiles... his conventional military and traditional bombing would do incredible amounts of damage to Seoul, not to mention the 140,000 U.S. citizens (mostly military related) that live and work in South Korea.

Trump is working hard at dismantling the Iran deal. The Iran deal is solid. The U.S. spent six years getting to the point where Iran was willing to talk. It took agreement from most of Europe, Russia, and China. The combined weight of sanctions finally brought about a deal, but it was a shit-ton of work. It's not perfect, but it's good. Most U.S. officials agree that it's good. Russia, China, Europe, and Iran all want the deal to stay in place. The only one who is stirring up shit about it is Trump. Why? Because when it was originally implemented was during the Obama era, and at the time, Trump (who clearly is not the master of facts and doesn't understand any of it) criticized it as a terrible deal for the U.S. Now he feels like he has to stand behind those words and tear it down with no plan on how to go forward. It took six years last time. How long would it take to arrange a new deal when the U.S. will not be able to get everyone on board with sanctions a second time and when Iran knows that the word of the U.S. doesn't count anymore? Thus, our options are to stop them with military force (good luck). OR they go ahead and continue their nuclear program. If Trump succeeds in breaking the Iran deal, Iran will have working nukes in 5 or so years. Nukes they can easily drop on Israel or any of their other neighbors. Is that a scenario we want to see next time there is a spike in mid-east conflict?

Pence would continue to work diplomatically with North Korea and would not openly antagonize them this way. Pence would not pull out of the Iran deal. Pence would staff the fucking State Department and let them do their job. I would most certainly disagree with most of his policies and actions as president (as I do with Trump), but I wouldn't be as worried about him starting a new global conflict.

[Bonefish]

See, that's what I don't understand. The world is NOT a balanced group of people who would all just "get along" if it wasn't for loud mouthed Trump. The world has been an unbalanced mess, teetering on the edge of global conflict between nuclear armed powers for something like 50 or 70 years. Ye, trump has all the seeming of incompetence and irrationality, and it seems horrible that we have to let him take the next turn at the Jenga platform that is international relations. But step back for a moment and realize: IT'S A JENGA GAME. It's deliberate brinksmanship that removes a piece here, and inserts it here, hoping that this time won't be the time when it crumbles. Except, unlike the game involving little wooden blocks, when this tower comes down, it ain't just gonna be the person who touched it last who loses.

I harbor no illusions about Pence's attitude towards Iran. He is a die-hard religious fundamentalist who supports Israel, and it's clear that his opinion on Iran is rather more in line with Israel's ideas: which is that Iran must be stopped from becoming the premier power in the middle east. By hook or by crook, Iran cannot be allowed to develop into a successful and powerful nation, or it will completely destabilize the arrangement in the middle east that currently exists. Of course, that arrangement is unraveling before our eyes anyway, as Turkey edges closer to Russia and Iran, and Saudi Arabia and Israel look to find common ground in an anti-Iran faction. Pence was against the Iran deal before he started campaigning with Trump, and I don't expect him to turn around and say it was a good thing if trump is gone.

North Korea? Well, that's just a fucked up place. There's no diplomatic solution there. We're just gonna kick it down the road until it blows up. Hopefully not when our Party is in power.

[Mike]

That feels like saying, "Everything's a mess, so why bother worrying and why bother trying." I can't get on board with that.

It's a mess and every action is fraught with peril, but I still feel that some are more perilous than others. I'd rather have someone at the helm who at least tries to understand and tries to make an informed decision, even if I don't agree with them.

One of the most apt descriptions of Trump I have heard recently was from Eliot Cohen (Bush-era Republican foreign policy advisor to Condoleezza Rice) who said that one of the biggest dangers of Trump is that he is not only ignorant on most aspects of his job but also incurious. He not only doesn't know but also doesn't care to know. I don't know that I've ever heard the word incurious before, but it stuck with me.

[poorpete]

Pence 2017! Pence 2017! (oh god, I'm going to have to update my chant soon)

[Bonefish]

Mike, imagine for a second that you were going to get on a charter bus, with your kids, and go to some exotic destination. As you pull up to the bus lot, you see the chief mechanic passed out with a bottle of bourbon in his hands, tools and half assembled engine laying around him. You see the people loading your families belongings into the belly not only throwing them carelessly, but you're pretty sure you saw one of them open up and rifle through you're wife's unmentionables. As you board, you see that the are steel belts showing on all the tires, and you can't be sure, but it smells like gasoline is wafting through the air. The seats are frayed, the seatbelts broken, or busily being fashioned into shivs by a motley assortment of characters. None of the windows opens, and as the bus starts up, not only does the air conditioning not work, but the heat is set at a temperature slightly cooler than the core of the sun. Then you see the driver is a lunatic whose people skills leave a little to be desired of, and you stand up and angrily shout: "WE NEED ANOTHER BUS DRIVER!".

But the problem isn't the bus driver. Well, sure, he's part of the problem. But the whole bus, and most likely the charter line that owns it, is in shambles, and it's all waiting to explode like a redneck watching them tear down his favorite Robert E. Lee statue that he never paid attention to before. The whole thing is a problem, and needs to be addressed. You can get the nice, polite bus driver back, but at some point, no matter how much verve and skill he has, something beyond his control is going to happen, and we're all going to die in a fiery auto-crash. It's really not gonna matter who is driving the bus, because the bus is basically a ticking timebomb, waiting to go off.

The international scene is a mess, because it's always been a mess. But some things have happened in our memory that have made it messier. One of the first and most important is the dissolution of the USSR. For better or worse, atleast when the Russkies were a "credible" threat, there was a sense of knowing who was on our side, and who wasn't. We knew that most of Europe were our allies, we knew that the Russians had Eastern Europe and China, and then the "bit" players were really unimportant, but could be swayed over with treats or threats. That polarity is gone, and we hop-skipped and jumped into the middle of it thinking that we are the sole remaining superpower! But really, we're not. And the nature of a multi-axis world is one in which brinksmanship and widespread warfare are endemic.

We have yet to develop, as a global entity, some form of contextualization of the use of force. What does that mean? Quite simply: we don't have any guideline or framework for when it acceptable to use military force in pursuit of politics. Lacking such a thing, we have to resort to a very brutal and arbitrary rule: It's right when we say it's right, and our might makes it right. However, this leads to all sorts of people waging wars up to, but not quite at the line, the undefined, not clearly colored "red line" that will lead to an overwhelming response by the world's so called superpower. And since the line isn't clearly defined, each new experiment edges just a bit closer to the line, a bit closer to the tipping point.

The Iran deal was going to be in hot water, regardless of who was elected president. Both candidates had, in the most polite terms, disapproving attitudes towards Iran. Both candidates, again, had disapproving opinions towards North Korea. But only ONE of those candidates had any experience in trying to bully China with escalatory behavior. Prior to Russia hacking the election, I was atleast mollified that only the republicans sought confortation with Russia. Then, well, shit. I guess we all want to fight Russia nowadays, with Trump being the dissenter who wants to be buddies with Putin.

Global instability is only going to get worse. And that has nothing to do with Putin, or Trump, or Rocket Man. And everything to do with the global order re-aligning as a multiple axis great power struggle, rather than being dominated by a polar struggle or single power. And that will continue to happen, accelerated by the pace of technological advancement. And sadly, as our country is dominated by proponents of american exceptionalism, we're likely to get caught in the lurch in the next decade, tops, trying to figure out why no one is scared of us like they used to be.

And that's why I think that dickering over the bus driver is somewhat pointless. Yes, he's a shitty bus driver. But he's very likely the least of our worries.

[WillyGilligan]

Seems petty in the context of nukes, but is here early. And once again, boilerplate GOP talking points come out of the President's mouth like Biff Tannen trying to be witty.

[Bonefish]

[WillyGilligan]

The candy just barely hit the shelves at my grocery store.

I'm still wondering where anyone lives that they aren't "allowed" to say Merry Christmas. I say it and no one bothers me. But I say Happy Holidays if I don't know you or won't see you till after New Year's. Pretty simple, and I have yet to be thrown in one gulag over it.