tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post5539553468346384593..comments2024-03-17T00:10:44.022+00:00Comments on From Arse To Elbow: TrinitarianismDavid Timoneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-14259074539751970652017-01-22T16:47:57.767+00:002017-01-22T16:47:57.767+00:00Herbie:
The problem with contemporary liberalism ...Herbie:<br /><br />The problem with contemporary liberalism is its obsession with rhetoric and abstract principle rather than procedures and institutions. Thus they are obsessed with the idea of a 'good president' who, like Obama, can talk in their 'language' and who gives the veneer of the state a shine of diversity and managerial competence.<br /><br />If anything, someone like Trump has let the cat out of the bag. His own rhetoric and style is almost ridiculously instrumental in its play for certain groups and their interests and identities, while his open grasp at the flag with his 'America first' claims and promise to 'make America great again' have exposed the USA's claim to be the benevolent hegemon that aims to rule for the good of the world.<br /><br />Unfortunately I think it will take Democrats and liberals a long time to stop seeing the political process in terms of electing a good or evil chief executive and more in taking the democratic process they claim to love to the lower levels of politics where their influence has become so weak. Igor Belanovnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-9556116787799514172017-01-22T14:45:58.515+00:002017-01-22T14:45:58.515+00:00I think I am making the point that the liberals ar...I think I am making the point that the liberals are no better than Trump and in some ways worse because they do try and occupy the moral high ground. Whereas with Trump there isn’t much pretence of that. And I don’t think by liberals I mean liberal elites but the liberal guy on the street. I saw an interview with some ordinary folk on the liberal anti Trump march and it was Putin this and Russia that. Clearly they have no qualms about playing the scapegoat card when it suits.<br /><br />Also if the liberals have a problem with the US electoral system maybe they would get more credibility if they voiced that when one of the murderous liberals was in charge! If you accept the voting system as it stands it is really pathetic actually to complain when the vote goes against you, as if that isn’t implicit in the system! It is even more sickening that you protest after staying silent to a President who has dropped 26,000 bombs in a single year and has a, let us be charitable, appalling record when it comes to hitting the right targets! Oh and the cherry on the cake is that under Obama the mass surveillance society with its clear illiberal totalitarian implications grow exponentially and the liberals remained all but mute on the subject.<br /><br />I can only hope that Trump uses the mass spy network to document every single liberal in America with the intention of ‘dealing with them’ in sizable batches and that their anticipations about assaults on their rights are an understatement. Now that would be beautiful irony!<br /><br />To sum the above up in a single line, the ‘elites’ and the ‘establishment’ are the very least of our problems!<br />Herbie Destroys the Environmentnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-83016331817281950022017-01-22T11:58:34.670+00:002017-01-22T11:58:34.670+00:00There's more to the Putin bogey than simple pr...There's more to the Putin bogey than simple projection - i.e. avoiding the question as to why the Democrats lost. As you saw with Trump's rhetoric in his inaugural address - "The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world" - the far right manoeuvre involves both an alien enemy and (implicitly in this quote) a native traitor. <br /><br />This is not simple populism - the antipathy towards elites - but the suggestion that the wrong elite are in charge: that they've sold the country out ("a bad deal"). It is therefore a critique of the establishment. You can see this in the way that Trump on day 1 both continued his verbal assault on the media (the old establishment) and attempted to get the CIA on side (the new elite cutting a deal with the old apparatus).<br /><br />The liberal demonisation of Russia has focused on the perceived corruption of the institutions of the Republic: elections, "news", the FBI etc. As such this is a plea for the defence of the establishment, which is why it is failing to gain popular traction. The demos yesterday made little of it, being more focused on pre-emptive defence of abortion and healthcare.<br /><br />The anti-Trump forces in US society are still divided between establishment liberals emphasising propriety and the popular mass offended by what they anticipate will be assaults on their rights and social gains. Instead of getting wound up by the WH spokesman telling bare-faced lies, liberals ought to be insisting that the repeal of the ACA should lead to the introduction of a full single-payer health system. Don't hold your breath.David Timoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-89545685771718710052017-01-22T09:24:43.549+00:002017-01-22T09:24:43.549+00:00Apparently Obama dropped 26,000 bombs in 2016, and...Apparently Obama dropped 26,000 bombs in 2016, and moreover 90% of the drone strikes he ordered hit the wrong target!<br /><br />Good riddance bad president!<br /><br />This is why the million woman March and all the Liberal tears really just make me want to puke.<br /><br />It is interesting how the liberals are using Russia as a scapegoat in the victory of Trump. We see this time and again, the need to project the actual decision of ordinary people onto some nefarious other, in this case Russia. So the liberals cannot rationalise that it was actual real life Americans who entered the ballot box and put a tick against Trump but have to divert the blame to the Russia. In this way the liberals are not so different to the far right, who like to use the old scapegoat tactic now and again!Herbie Destroys the Environmentnoreply@blogger.com