I'll vote for Sanders tomorrow, then Trump

[William393]

Originally Posted by elpuebloUNIdo

Trump's conflicts of interest are so overt, so over-the-top, that if we got rid of him and all the villains in his cabinet, we'd mistakenly view this as progress. In reality, we'd be left with a less overt, more subtle version of the same thing.

Man, you're another one living in the past, propped up by Obama-bashing. Try bashing President McKinley or Hoover, who come to mind because I attended schools named after those 2.

But seriously, Trump lied about protecting LGBTQ rights, and I hear he wants to overturn democratically achieved marijuana legalization in states. Maybe its just a way to exert revenge, because marijuana is a big cash crop and has improved the economy where ever it occurred.

[William393]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Me too. Some of what they say about him is about meaningless stuff, and is kind of a waste of everyone's time. And I suppose when they ask for clarity on his outright lies or contradictory statements, that's annoying to him so he sees that as "out to get him" also.
The issue was not about the football being out in the open, it was about a strategy meeting being held out in the open, surrounded by random people with their cell phones out. The pictures you're referring to may have been taken by one of the guests with their phone.

Watch Steven Colbert's opening monologue. Everyday he talks about Trump, and his show has moved into #1 position for it!!

http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-sh...-lupe-fiasco-/

[William393]

Trump has stopped tweeting!!! A FEW TIMES IN THE LAST 5 DAYS.

betsy DeVos wanted to maintain trans rights in schools to prevent the harm to trans kids, but was threatened to get fired so she allowed it. Tough choice: my job vs. harm to trans kids. Hmmmmm.

[song]

Originally Posted by William393

But I forbid you to speak of Obama anymore. You sound like Trump

Well, it is possible to go further back in history and find precedents for what Trump is now doing -Roosevelt’s concentration camps for people of Japanese ancestry are a good example- but Obama is Trump’s immediate predecessor, so he is really one of the best illustrations that Trump is the natural next step for America's two capitalist parties of racism and war.

Originally Posted by William393

Stop living in the past and face the future, please.

The future?? Obama budgeted $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal while uttering polite words about “non-proliferation” for the media. Trump doesn’t bother with the politeness, and he also seems to have no objection to Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” plan to attack China. Indeed, he shows signs of wanting to speed it up, just as he is doing with Obama’s war on immigrants.

I’m not sure why Trump objects to the Obama-led, mostly bipartisan plan to also attack Russia. This plan is apocalyptic lunacy, of course, but that doesn’t seem to faze Trump or any of the other capitalist rulers of today. Germany has announced a significant expansion of its military, and its tanks are now rolling into Eastern Europe for the first time since World War II, but this time accompanied by American tanks. As far as I can tell, this is the only reason the New York Times is running articles with titles like “How Can We Get Rid of Trump?”

[William393]

Song: Any war, against Russia, China, ISIS, the Confederacy, etc, is mostly designed to funnel taxpayer $$ into the hands of the Owners of the military industrial complex. We saw this when $Billions of taxpayer $ went to Halliburton and Blackwater and Haliburton.

And possibly grab the oil, a war crime Trump said he wanted to do ....

[wobbling bear]

Are we completly rational when voting ? this question is nagging me.
You may not be aware that we are going to elect the president of France in April. So ?
Well I think my vote is going to have strange features:
- My favourite has never held any elected office (bad: I have the greatest respect for most elected officials)
- He is just making vague promises ( will they be implemented ?)
- He is trying to make everybody happy ... so makes promise to the left and to the right (so you are pleased with things that match your preferences).
Being a member of the bourgeoisie (yes Song!) I also usually vote for the communist mayor of my home town so I am accustomed to stretch values.
- the funny thing is that I start to be irrational: I don't want any more to hear critics of "my" candidate (though many critics are certainly valid!)

So casting "crazy" ballots may be, after all, very common
(I have an excuse: I find all other candidates unpalatable)

[song]

Originally Posted by wobbling bear

I also usually vote for the communist mayor of my home town

The mayor is communist? You mean PCF? The party that replaced the Internationale with the Marseillaise in the 1930s, and got rid of the the red flag so they could fly the tricolor instead? Are they telling people to vote for some sort of right-wing “lesser evil” in this election, as they usually do?

They’re a bit like Communist Party USA- the ones who obeyed Stalin’s orders to support the Democratic Party. A few members of CPUSA were Japanese-American, and when president Roosevelt had them detained and sent to his camps, CPUSA proved its loyalty by suspending their party membership! Until about that time, CPUSA had been waging a heroic struggle against lynching in the South, but this campaign had to be suddenly abandoned so as not to embarrass the Democrats, who were the party of the Klan at that time.

[wobbling bear]

Originally Posted by song

The mayor is communist?
You mean PCF?

yes She is

Are they telling people to vote for some sort of right-wing “lesser evil” in this election, as they usually do?

I have no idea: people here listen to her only on local matters ... they have different ideas when it comes to national elections.

[pierrox]

Originally Posted by wobbling bear

Are we completly rational when voting ? this question is nagging me.

Well your choice is not irrational, if you put it in context, he's probably the least bad of them (though I have doubts about his willingness to change things much as he's a pure product of the banking system). And it's probably the only way to block our blonde white supremacist candidate. So voting for him is a very rational choice. But you're right, often people vote for a candidate that will not support them.

Originally Posted by wobbling bear

yes She is
I have no idea: people here listen to her only on local matters ... they have different ideas when it comes to national elections.

Song, we have a lot of local mayors who are members of the PCF in France. It doesn't mean they're willing to turn those towns into satellites of Moscow. Historically, the PCF has a lot to do with how the aftermaths of the war were cured since they were a very active part of the resistance. Their ideology never really worked on a national level, but locally they're usually pretty good: their program always include a lot of sharing and redistribution, which translates into culturally active towns (lots of subsidy going to music/dance schools, sports), with a lot of things for the people (kindergarten, help for the elderly and so on).
Like our favourite bear, I would never even think about voting for them on a national election, but locally 100%.

Edit: added a link

[song]

Originally Posted by pierrox

we have a lot of local mayors who are members of the PCF in France. It doesn't mean they're willing to turn those towns into satellites of Moscow.

Yeah, the PCF didn’t turn French towns into Soviet satellites even when the USSR still existed, so I seriously doubt they will do it now! In fact, the PCF actively prevented a socialist revolution in France in 1936, and soon afterwards their Spanish counterparts did the same thing in Spain, making it possible for Francisco Franco to seize power and execute most of them.

What I meant to say before was that the PCF is communist in name only, like CPUSA, but much larger, and it has the same strategy of supporting capitalist politicians with the excuse that they are somehow a lesser evil: Jacques Chirac, John Kerry, Obama, Clinton, etc. There was, however, a PCF mayor in Saint-Denis a few years ago who named a local street after America’s most famous political prisoner. That was a courageous thing to do, and I imagine it must have made a lot of people very happy.

What you guys say about the PCF being a tool for local governance within the capitalist system is interesting. I wasn’t aware that its role had been so carefully designated, but it makes sense, now that you mention it. The US also sometimes has local government officials who belong to various "third parties," though not very often.

[johnfoss]

Originally Posted by wobbling bear

Are we completly rational when voting ? this question is nagging me.

We Americans seem to be all over the place. Some vote with their minds, some with their hearts, some with their hopes, and some with the TV remote in their other hand, and wayyy too little thought put into their choices.

- My favourite has never held any elected office (bad: I have the greatest respect for most elected officials)
- He is just making vague promises ( will they be implemented ?)
- He is trying to make everybody happy ... so makes promise to the left and to the right (so you are pleased with things that match your preferences).

You are voting with your hopes. As he has little/no experience, it's a crapshoot. That's what my country voted for, and now we have the crap. We'll see where it leads...

(I have an excuse: I find all other candidates unpalatable)

Bad excuse. But it's your vote. As I have gotten older I've given more thought to my choices (at least on the big offices). I also consider who I'm not voting for, and what I'm letting go of if I choose to not vote.

[pierrox]

Originally Posted by song

What you guys say about the PCF being a tool for local governance within the capitalist system is interesting. I wasn’t aware that its role had been so carefully designated, but it makes sense, now that you mention it. The US also sometimes has local government officials who belong to various "third parties," though not very often.

The PCF would have probably totally disappeared without a local anchorage. My brother lives in a very wealthy small town: a big dam being on its territory, they get a lot of money for that (tax on businesses). The town has had a "communist" mayor for the past 30 years. It has the biggest public library in the area, a pre-school/kindergarten, a canteen, a sport centre with lots of very affordable activities (from karate to ping-pong), a cultural centre (nephews play the piano and the trumpet) and so on. The other town on that territory has a similar budget. They have a bigger police force, one (private) tennis court and a (private) swimming pool, a lot of flowers across the city and the 16th century castle looks like it was built yesterday. Guess which town has a declining aging population?

[William393]

Trump is crumbling!!

Still inventing fake news about Obama to distract. how many years did he hapr about Obama's birth certificate??

[harper]

Originally Posted by William393

Trump is crumbling!!

Why did you vote for him, Billy? You should have known better.

[wobbling bear]

every year we meet, drink, play music and remember the days when we were students (50 years ago )
as usual someone sings the "brainwashing machine" song... the tradition is more than a hundred years old!
and then I suddenly realised that reality is more extraordinary than fiction:
the play where the song appeared is UBU ROI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubu_Roi ) and it was performed in 1896! Now everything can happen: surrealism is real! ... How many countries will be governed by copies of "père Ubu"? (or "mère Ubu" when it comes to France )