The Washington Examiner is hardly the paragon of objective journalism.
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The Official Paracast Political Thread! — Part Three
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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kanakaris
Paranormal Adept
So il Duce is mad ?
kanakaris
Paranormal Adept
Why should this happen?Hillary won by 2 million votes , and counting.Too bad this didn't happen....
DaveM
Paranormal Adept
All those lame brain celebrities promised to leave... and they are still here. It's what they call lying.
DaveM
Paranormal Adept
She didn't win the electoral college count. You have been told this repeatedly but you just won't listen. That is what counts in this country. Go ask President Al Gore.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
This analysis is just that - not so much a prognostication (though I find it hard to fault his reasoning) as an analysis of trends. The Perfect Storm politically in the face of the inexorable consequences of not just unimpeded climate change - but lack of any preparation for what comes. The future is in regions and local sustainability - but not after a very messy time.
[Emphasis in text my own.]
The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces - George Monbiot
From Trump to climate change, this multiheaded crisis presages collapse. And there’s no hope of exiting the ‘other side’ if political alternatives are shut down
LINK: The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces | George Monbiot
[Emphasis in text my own.]
The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces - George Monbiot
From Trump to climate change, this multiheaded crisis presages collapse. And there’s no hope of exiting the ‘other side’ if political alternatives are shut down
LINK: The 13 impossible crises that humanity now faces | George Monbiot
TEXT: 1. Donald Trump
The next occupant of the White House will be a man who appears to possess no capacity for restraint, balance or empathy, but a bottomless capacity for revenge and vindictiveness. He has been granted a clean sweep of power, with both houses and the supreme court in his pocket. He is surrounding himself with people whose judgment and knowledge of the world are, to say the least, limited. He will take charge of the world’s biggest nuclear and conventional arsenals, and the most extensive surveillance and security apparatus any state has ever developed.
2. His national security adviser
In making strategic military decisions, he has a free hand, with the capacity to act even without the nominal constraint of Congress. His national security adviser,Michael T Flynn, is a dangerous extremist.
3. The rest of his team
Trump’s team is partly composed of professional lobbyists hired by fossil fuel, tobacco, chemical and finance companies and assorted billionaires. Their primary political effort is to avoid regulation and taxation. These people – or rather the interests they represent – are now in charge. Aside from the implications for the living world, public health, public finance and financial stability, this is a vindication of the political model pioneered by the tobacco companies in the 1960s. It demonstrates that if you spend enough money setting up thinktanks, academic posts and fake grassroots movements, and work with the corporate media to give them a platform, you can buy all the politics you need. Democracy becomes a dead letter. Political alternatives are shut down.
The next occupant of the White House will be a man who appears to possess no capacity for restraint, balance or empathy, but a bottomless capacity for revenge and vindictiveness. He has been granted a clean sweep of power, with both houses and the supreme court in his pocket. He is surrounding himself with people whose judgment and knowledge of the world are, to say the least, limited. He will take charge of the world’s biggest nuclear and conventional arsenals, and the most extensive surveillance and security apparatus any state has ever developed.
2. His national security adviser
In making strategic military decisions, he has a free hand, with the capacity to act even without the nominal constraint of Congress. His national security adviser,Michael T Flynn, is a dangerous extremist.
3. The rest of his team
Trump’s team is partly composed of professional lobbyists hired by fossil fuel, tobacco, chemical and finance companies and assorted billionaires. Their primary political effort is to avoid regulation and taxation. These people – or rather the interests they represent – are now in charge. Aside from the implications for the living world, public health, public finance and financial stability, this is a vindication of the political model pioneered by the tobacco companies in the 1960s. It demonstrates that if you spend enough money setting up thinktanks, academic posts and fake grassroots movements, and work with the corporate media to give them a platform, you can buy all the politics you need. Democracy becomes a dead letter. Political alternatives are shut down.
4. The transatlantic backdrop
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Britain’s attempts to disentangle itself from the European Union are confronted with a level of complexity that may be insuperable. Moreover, there may be no answer to the political fix in which the government finds itself. This is as follows: a) either it agrees to the free movement of people in exchange for access to the single market, in which case the pro-Brexit camp will have gained nothing except massive embarrassment, or b) the EU slams the shutters down. Not only is it likely to reject the terms the government proposes; but it might also try to impose an exit bill of about €60 billion for the costs incurred by our withdrawal. This would be politically impossible for the government to pay, leading to a non-negotiated rupture and the hardest imaginable Brexit.
5. Eurozone risks
The Italian banking crisis looks big. What impact this might have on the survival of the eurozone is anyone’s guess.
6. … and their global ramifications
Whether it is also sufficient to trigger another global financial crisis is again hard to judge. If such a thing were to occur, governments would not be able to mount a rescue plan of the kind they used in 2007-8. The coffers are empty.
7. Job-eating automation
Automation will destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale, and because the penetration of information technology into every part of the economy is not a passing phase but an escalating trend, it is hard to see how this employment will be replaced. No government or major political party anywhere shows any sign of comprehending the scale of this issue.
8. If Marine Le Pen wins
Marine Le Pen has a moderate to fair chance of becoming the French president in May. Whether this would be sufficient to trigger the collapse of the EU is another unknown. If this is not a sufficient crisis, there are several others lining up (especially the growing nationalist movements across central and eastern Europe in particular, but to a lesser extent almost everywhere) that could catalyse a chain reaction. I believe that when this begins, it will happen with a speed that will take almost everyone by surprise. From one month to the next, the EU could cease to exist.
9. The UN security council would look like …
If Le Pen wins, the permanent members of the UN security council will be represented by the following people: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Theresa May and Marine Le Pen. It would be a stretch to call that reassuring.
10. The Paris climate agreement trashed
National climate change programmes bear no connection to the commitments governments made at Paris. Even if these programmes are fully implemented (they won’t be), they set us on a climate-change trajectory way beyond that envisaged by the agreement. And this is before we know what Trump will do.
11. … and the effects on migration
One of the many impacts of climate breakdown – aside from such minor matters as the inundation of cities, the loss of food production and curtailment of water supplies – will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration. The humanitarian, political and military implications are off the scale.
12. … with just 60 harvests left
According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left.
13. … an accelerating extinction crisis
The extinction crisis appears, if anything, to be accelerating.
One of the peculiarities of this complex, multiheaded crisis is that there appears to be no “other side” on to which we might emerge. It is hard to imagine a realistic scenario in which governments lose the capacity for total surveillance and drone strikes; in which billionaires forget how to manipulate public opinion; in which a broken EU reconvenes; in which climate breakdown unhappens, species return from extinction and the soil comes back to the land. These are not momentary crises, but appear to presage permanent collapse.
So the key question is not how we weather them but how – if this is possible – we avert them. Can it be done? If so what would it take?
I write this not to depress you, though I know it will have that effect, but to concentrate our minds on the scale of the task. - George Monbiot
Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Britain’s attempts to disentangle itself from the European Union are confronted with a level of complexity that may be insuperable. Moreover, there may be no answer to the political fix in which the government finds itself. This is as follows: a) either it agrees to the free movement of people in exchange for access to the single market, in which case the pro-Brexit camp will have gained nothing except massive embarrassment, or b) the EU slams the shutters down. Not only is it likely to reject the terms the government proposes; but it might also try to impose an exit bill of about €60 billion for the costs incurred by our withdrawal. This would be politically impossible for the government to pay, leading to a non-negotiated rupture and the hardest imaginable Brexit.
5. Eurozone risks
The Italian banking crisis looks big. What impact this might have on the survival of the eurozone is anyone’s guess.
6. … and their global ramifications
Whether it is also sufficient to trigger another global financial crisis is again hard to judge. If such a thing were to occur, governments would not be able to mount a rescue plan of the kind they used in 2007-8. The coffers are empty.
7. Job-eating automation
Automation will destroy jobs on an unprecedented scale, and because the penetration of information technology into every part of the economy is not a passing phase but an escalating trend, it is hard to see how this employment will be replaced. No government or major political party anywhere shows any sign of comprehending the scale of this issue.
8. If Marine Le Pen wins
Marine Le Pen has a moderate to fair chance of becoming the French president in May. Whether this would be sufficient to trigger the collapse of the EU is another unknown. If this is not a sufficient crisis, there are several others lining up (especially the growing nationalist movements across central and eastern Europe in particular, but to a lesser extent almost everywhere) that could catalyse a chain reaction. I believe that when this begins, it will happen with a speed that will take almost everyone by surprise. From one month to the next, the EU could cease to exist.
9. The UN security council would look like …
If Le Pen wins, the permanent members of the UN security council will be represented by the following people: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Theresa May and Marine Le Pen. It would be a stretch to call that reassuring.
10. The Paris climate agreement trashed
National climate change programmes bear no connection to the commitments governments made at Paris. Even if these programmes are fully implemented (they won’t be), they set us on a climate-change trajectory way beyond that envisaged by the agreement. And this is before we know what Trump will do.
11. … and the effects on migration
One of the many impacts of climate breakdown – aside from such minor matters as the inundation of cities, the loss of food production and curtailment of water supplies – will be the mass movement of people, to an extent that dwarfs current migration. The humanitarian, political and military implications are off the scale.
12. … with just 60 harvests left
According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, at current rates of soil loss we have 60 years of harvests left.
13. … an accelerating extinction crisis
The extinction crisis appears, if anything, to be accelerating.
One of the peculiarities of this complex, multiheaded crisis is that there appears to be no “other side” on to which we might emerge. It is hard to imagine a realistic scenario in which governments lose the capacity for total surveillance and drone strikes; in which billionaires forget how to manipulate public opinion; in which a broken EU reconvenes; in which climate breakdown unhappens, species return from extinction and the soil comes back to the land. These are not momentary crises, but appear to presage permanent collapse.
So the key question is not how we weather them but how – if this is possible – we avert them. Can it be done? If so what would it take?
I write this not to depress you, though I know it will have that effect, but to concentrate our minds on the scale of the task. - George Monbiot
Greers Meeting Planner
Paranormal Adept
So not pro would mean 'not unequivocally in support of without debate'.
My personal position on all these politically correct topics would normally default to liberal e.g. I couldn't care less about a persons sex, sexuality or race.
The point being trying to stifle free speech on these topics is extremely concerning. Even if it offends you. It wont kill us to engage someone of differing opinion in debate. If someone wants to disagree with me and take a different view I don't want them punished or shut up by the law. That's tyranny.
You can't win a debate just by name calling someone e.g. a racist because they want illegal immagrants deported. Moral high ground is not winning an argument.
Here lies the problem people, the open market capitalism that the left thought would bring everyone together has resulted in the rich and poor divide growing and growing.
People want their day to day standard of living and opportunities to improve and the left have no answer all they can say to the right who offer a change is name calling of racists and bigots. Not going to work. Left have to offer economic change and prosperity plans not just name call from the moral high ground
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
The headline indicates climate change will be discussed in the below opinion piece - and while it is, it is but one of the many forces thrusting us into the cusp of profoundly changing times. We are at a watershed moment - 2016 is the beginning of the 'after'.
In a way, I don't think any of the 'politics on the ground' matters in the details. Even if Hillary got in - or gets in - what comes is being determined by larger scale forces than whether anyone wants to call someone a 'retard' or a 'loser'.
Or wax eloquent about life and marriage (and sex) on one's own terms.
BTW a curious factoid - gun sales in the US have declined since Trump's election.
Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war by George Monbiot
The failure to get to grips with our crises, by all mainstream political parties, is likely to lead to a war between the major powers in my lifetime
LINK: Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war | George Monbiot
In a way, I don't think any of the 'politics on the ground' matters in the details. Even if Hillary got in - or gets in - what comes is being determined by larger scale forces than whether anyone wants to call someone a 'retard' or a 'loser'.
Or wax eloquent about life and marriage (and sex) on one's own terms. BTW a curious factoid - gun sales in the US have declined since Trump's election.
Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war by George Monbiot
The failure to get to grips with our crises, by all mainstream political parties, is likely to lead to a war between the major powers in my lifetime
LINK: Trump’s climate denial is just one of the forces that point towards war | George Monbiot
TEXT: "Wave the magic wand and the problem goes away. Those pesky pollution laws, carbon caps and clean-power plans: swish them away and the golden age of blue-collar employment will return. This is Donald Trump’s promise, in his video message on Monday, in which the US president-elect claimed that unleashing coal and fracking would create 'many millions of high-paid jobs'. He will tear down everything to make it come true.
"But it won’t come true. Even if we ripped the world to pieces in the search for full employment, leaving no mountain unturned, we would not find it. Instead, we would merely jeopardise the prosperity – and the lives – of people everywhere. However slavishly governments grovel to corporate Luddism, they will not bring the smog economy back.
"No one can deny the problem Trump claims to be addressing. The old mining and industrial areas are in crisis throughout the rich world. And we have seen nothing yet. I have just reread the study published by the Oxford Martin School in 2013 on the impacts of computerisation. What jumps out, to put it crudely, is that jobs in the rust belts and rural towns that voted for Trump are at high risk of automation, while the professions of many Hillary Clinton supporters are at low risk.
"The jobs most likely to be destroyed are in mining, raw materials, manufacturing, transport and logistics, cargo handling, warehousing and retailing, construction (prefabricated buildings will be assembled by robots in factories), office support, administration and telemarketing. So what, in the areas that voted for Trump, will be left?
"Farm jobs have mostly gone already. Service and care work, where hope for some appeared to lie, will be threatened by a further wave of automation, as service robots – commercial and domestic – take over.
"Yes, there will be jobs in the green economy: more and better than any that could be revived in the fossil economy. But they won’t be enough to fill the gaps, and many will be in the wrong places for those losing their professions.
"At lower risk is work that requires negotiation, persuasion, originality and creativity. The management and business jobs that demand these skills are comparatively safe from automation; so are those of lawyers, teachers, researchers, doctors, journalists, actors and artists. The jobs that demand the highest educational attainment are the least susceptible to computerisation. The divisions tearing America apart will only widen.
"Even this bleak analysis does not capture in full the underlying reasons why good, abundant jobs will not return to the places that need them most. As Paul Mason argues in Post Capitalism, the impacts of information technology go way beyond simple automation: they are likely to destroy the very basis of the market economy, and the relationship between work and wages.
"And, as the French writer Paul Arbair notes in the most interesting essay I have read this year, beyond a certain level of complexity economies become harder to sustain. There’s a point at which further complexity delivers diminishing returns; society is then overwhelmed by its demands, and breaks down. He argues that the political crisis in western countries suggests we may have reached this point.
"Trump has also announced that on his first day in office he will withdraw America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He is right to do so, but for the wrong reasons. Like TTIP and Ceta, the TPP is a fake trade treaty whose primary impact is to extend corporate property rights at the expense of both competition and democracy. But withdrawal will not, as he claims, 'bring jobs and industry back to American shores'. The work in Mexico and China that Trump wants to reclaim will evaporate long before it can be repatriated.
"As for the high-quality, high-waged working-class jobs he promised, these are never handed down from on high. They are secured through the organisation of labour. But the unions were smashed by Ronald Reagan, and collective bargaining has been suppressed ever since by casualisation and fragmentation. So how is this going to happen? Out of the kindness of Trump’s heart? Kindness, Trump, heart?
"But it’s not just Trump. Clinton and Bernie Sanders also made impossible promises to bring back jobs. Half the platform of each party was based on a delusion. The social, environmental and economic crises we face require a complete reappraisal of the way we live and work. The failure by mainstream political parties to produce a new and persuasive economic narrative, which does not rely on sustaining impossible levels of growth and generating illusory jobs, provides a marvellous opening for demagogues everywhere.
"Governments across the world are making promises they cannot keep. In the absence of a new vision, their failure to materialise will mean only one thing: something or someone must be found to blame. As people become angrier and more alienated, as the complexity and connectivity of global systems becomes ever harder to manage, as institutions such as the European Union collapse and as climate change renders parts of the world uninhabitable, forcing hundreds of millions of people from their homes, the net of blame will be cast ever wider.
"Eventually the anger that cannot be assuaged through policy will be turned outwards, towards other nations. Faced with a choice between hard truths and easy lies, politicians and their supporters in the media will discover that foreign aggression is among the few options for political survival. I now believe that we will see war between the major powers within my lifetime. Which ones it will involve, and on what apparent cause, remains far from clear. But something that once seemed remote now looks probable.
"A complete reframing of economic life is needed not just to suppress the existential risk that climate change presents (a risk marked by a 20°C anomaly reported in the Arctic Ocean while I was writing this article), but other existential threats as well – including war. Today’s governments, whether they are run by Trump or Obama or May or Merkel, lack the courage and imagination even to open this conversation. It is left to others to conceive of a more plausible vision than trying to magic back the good old days. The task for all those who love this world and fear for our children is to imagine a different future rather than another past."
"But it won’t come true. Even if we ripped the world to pieces in the search for full employment, leaving no mountain unturned, we would not find it. Instead, we would merely jeopardise the prosperity – and the lives – of people everywhere. However slavishly governments grovel to corporate Luddism, they will not bring the smog economy back.
"No one can deny the problem Trump claims to be addressing. The old mining and industrial areas are in crisis throughout the rich world. And we have seen nothing yet. I have just reread the study published by the Oxford Martin School in 2013 on the impacts of computerisation. What jumps out, to put it crudely, is that jobs in the rust belts and rural towns that voted for Trump are at high risk of automation, while the professions of many Hillary Clinton supporters are at low risk.
"The jobs most likely to be destroyed are in mining, raw materials, manufacturing, transport and logistics, cargo handling, warehousing and retailing, construction (prefabricated buildings will be assembled by robots in factories), office support, administration and telemarketing. So what, in the areas that voted for Trump, will be left?
"Farm jobs have mostly gone already. Service and care work, where hope for some appeared to lie, will be threatened by a further wave of automation, as service robots – commercial and domestic – take over.
"Yes, there will be jobs in the green economy: more and better than any that could be revived in the fossil economy. But they won’t be enough to fill the gaps, and many will be in the wrong places for those losing their professions.
"At lower risk is work that requires negotiation, persuasion, originality and creativity. The management and business jobs that demand these skills are comparatively safe from automation; so are those of lawyers, teachers, researchers, doctors, journalists, actors and artists. The jobs that demand the highest educational attainment are the least susceptible to computerisation. The divisions tearing America apart will only widen.
"Even this bleak analysis does not capture in full the underlying reasons why good, abundant jobs will not return to the places that need them most. As Paul Mason argues in Post Capitalism, the impacts of information technology go way beyond simple automation: they are likely to destroy the very basis of the market economy, and the relationship between work and wages.
"And, as the French writer Paul Arbair notes in the most interesting essay I have read this year, beyond a certain level of complexity economies become harder to sustain. There’s a point at which further complexity delivers diminishing returns; society is then overwhelmed by its demands, and breaks down. He argues that the political crisis in western countries suggests we may have reached this point.
"Trump has also announced that on his first day in office he will withdraw America from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He is right to do so, but for the wrong reasons. Like TTIP and Ceta, the TPP is a fake trade treaty whose primary impact is to extend corporate property rights at the expense of both competition and democracy. But withdrawal will not, as he claims, 'bring jobs and industry back to American shores'. The work in Mexico and China that Trump wants to reclaim will evaporate long before it can be repatriated.
"As for the high-quality, high-waged working-class jobs he promised, these are never handed down from on high. They are secured through the organisation of labour. But the unions were smashed by Ronald Reagan, and collective bargaining has been suppressed ever since by casualisation and fragmentation. So how is this going to happen? Out of the kindness of Trump’s heart? Kindness, Trump, heart?
"But it’s not just Trump. Clinton and Bernie Sanders also made impossible promises to bring back jobs. Half the platform of each party was based on a delusion. The social, environmental and economic crises we face require a complete reappraisal of the way we live and work. The failure by mainstream political parties to produce a new and persuasive economic narrative, which does not rely on sustaining impossible levels of growth and generating illusory jobs, provides a marvellous opening for demagogues everywhere.
"Governments across the world are making promises they cannot keep. In the absence of a new vision, their failure to materialise will mean only one thing: something or someone must be found to blame. As people become angrier and more alienated, as the complexity and connectivity of global systems becomes ever harder to manage, as institutions such as the European Union collapse and as climate change renders parts of the world uninhabitable, forcing hundreds of millions of people from their homes, the net of blame will be cast ever wider.
"Eventually the anger that cannot be assuaged through policy will be turned outwards, towards other nations. Faced with a choice between hard truths and easy lies, politicians and their supporters in the media will discover that foreign aggression is among the few options for political survival. I now believe that we will see war between the major powers within my lifetime. Which ones it will involve, and on what apparent cause, remains far from clear. But something that once seemed remote now looks probable.
"A complete reframing of economic life is needed not just to suppress the existential risk that climate change presents (a risk marked by a 20°C anomaly reported in the Arctic Ocean while I was writing this article), but other existential threats as well – including war. Today’s governments, whether they are run by Trump or Obama or May or Merkel, lack the courage and imagination even to open this conversation. It is left to others to conceive of a more plausible vision than trying to magic back the good old days. The task for all those who love this world and fear for our children is to imagine a different future rather than another past."
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
I am wondering why no one is mentioning the news coming out about the Russian 'fake news' scandal. In fact some of the Russian generated 'fake news' - like about Hillary's health - was mentioned on these threads by posters, one being @Jeff Davis There was the war stuff - claims that Hillary would be at war with Russia. A lot of this stuff came from the Russian 'fake news' sites. No one is coming on to talk about being 'taken in' by the 'fake news'. Is there no recognition that a lot of people were used pretty badly, they were played to, for a purpose, to undermine our democracy?
LINK: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
LINK: Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say
marduk
quelling chaos since 2352BC
After this last election, I'd use that term pretty loosely.
Maybe with air quotes around democracy.
Walter Bosley
Paranormal Adept
Hey, good news, guys. Fidel Castro is dead. 
kanakaris
Paranormal Adept
She won the election.Am i right ?
Walter Bosley
Paranormal Adept
DaveM
Paranormal Adept
Wrong again, as usual.
kanakaris
Paranormal Adept
No?How so , she got more votes , 2 millions more.And don't start about the electoral college.Nope.
He's actually gone both ways on that one. More recently, for obvious reasons, he spoke in favor of the Electoral College, before he was against it again.
Following the Fox News example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/w...ackage-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
This is serious business. Surveys indicate viewers of Fox News are the least informed of media consumers, and this one came from a someone who worked for Reagan:
Fox News Viewers Least Informed Among Media Consumers, Says New Study By Former Reagan Adviser
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/w...ackage-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
This is serious business. Surveys indicate viewers of Fox News are the least informed of media consumers, and this one came from a someone who worked for Reagan:
Fox News Viewers Least Informed Among Media Consumers, Says New Study By Former Reagan Adviser
- Status