Hope the President does a good job for USA

[Arkteia]

Yup, so spoiled that Americans don't wanted to live under 4 more yrs. of his liberal policies. Middle class Americans have disappeared under Obama's watch.

And this is the thing... Middle class Americans have been disappearing slowly, not under anyone's watch, but rather, with closure of auto industry in Detroit or steel mills in Baltimore. Have you ever been to Detroit? Milwakee? I have been to both, they look like ghost cities to me. And I don't need to travel so far to see ghost cities - next to the capital of my state there are several ghost cities that used to have microbreweries. These microbreweries were bought by Sam Adams or another behemoth and people lost jobs. It happened in the 90-es. You don't want to go there now. Meth, hopelessness, welfare.

Sadly, it is the inevitable process, AI, robots replacing people, distant communications, and unless we turn into luddites and break all the machines, it will be going on.

It is another issue that in this country, we could probably all be supplied by robots catering to our needs and veg out on the couches, not live under the bridges, but homelessness probably has to do something with the system of distributing the goods, the corporate greed.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Tsk. DF-Troll 1, partgypsy 0.

Resist! Don't feed the troll!

Anything posted against the left way of thinking is a troll.... Left wingers 100, Right 0.

 

[Arkteia]

Anything posted against the left way of thinking is a troll.... Left wingers 100, Right 0.

If one reads just your posts, it would look as if this forum were run by Che Guevara, lol. There are no "left wingers" here. "Left" was my country, the Soviet Union, left was Communist China, which lived by the principle of "equalizing", i.e., you take everything from the rich and equally divide among the poor. So far I have never run into a person that would be a true leftist in this country. And let us be fair, neither Obama, nor Hillary, nor even Sanders are what one would call "leftist". Just because IT people on the coasts voted for gay marriage or legalization of pot does not mean that they are ready to donate all their property to support the working class.

 

[OreoRosies86]

In other Make America Cringe Again news,
Kaepernick is a son of a bitch for protesting the national anthem, Nazis are very fine people. Good times.

 

[Dancing Fire]

In other Make America Cringe Again news,
Kaepernick is a son of a bitch for protesting the national anthem, Nazis are very fine people. Good times.

I wouldn't call him a SOB but he is wrong for protesting during the singing of our national anthem.... He doesn't wanna admit to himself that he is not good enough anymore to play QB in the the NFL.

 

[OreoRosies86]

I wouldn't call him a SOB but he is wrong for protesting during the singing of our national anthem.... He doesn't wanna admit to himself that he is not good enough anymore to play QB in the the NFL.

 

[Tekate]

AWESOME! no truer sound ever!

 

[Dancing Fire]

Elliot
Using the race card in NFL is most ridiculous thing that I ever heard.... How many AAs are playing QB in the NFL? How many Asians are playing QB in the NFL? ...Thank you for not replying.

 

[OreoRosies86]

Elliot
Using the race card in NFL is most ridiculous thing that I ever heard.... How many AAs are playing QB in the NFL? How many Asians are playing QB in the NFL? ...Thank you for not replying.

 

[t-c]

In other Make America Cringe Again news,
Kaepernick is a son of a bitch for protesting the national anthem, Nazis are very fine people. Good times.

+1
Kaepernick isn't even protesting the National Anthem. He was protesting police brutality against black people during the National Anthem. The thing is that Trump had to be nudged by Melania to put his hand to his heart when the anthem was played, so you know he was not really concerned about respecting it.

 

[monarch64]

https://boingboing.net/2017/09/23/lelandmelvin.html/amp

DF please don't read this article. Doesn't fit with your narrative!

 

[lovedogs]

I just can't believe this BS. So an NFL player is an SOB for protesting police brutality, but people who run over others with their cars and yell about how "jews won't replace us" are "many sides, many sides". F**k this joke of a POTUS.

 

[AGBF]

If one reads just your posts, it would look as if this forum were run by Che Guevara, lol. There are no "left wingers" here. "Left" was my country, the Soviet Union, left was Communist China, which lived by the principle of "equalizing", i.e., you take everything from the rich and equally divide among the poor. So far I have never run into a person that would be a true leftist in this country. And let us be fair, neither Obama, nor Hillary, nor even Sanders are what one would call "leftist". Just because IT people on the coasts voted for gay marriage or legalization of pot does not mean that they are ready to donate all their property to support the working class.

There are some, but there were many more before the Second World War. Seeing Stalin in action (and what followed him) put a damper on the idealism of many young Marxists. Back before World War II some caring young people joined The Communist Party here and joined The Abraham Lincoln Brigades to support Loyalist Spain against Franco. Back then they had hope that communism would truly be a system that took from each according to his abilities and gave to each according to his needs.

AGBF

 

[Arkteia]

There are some, but there were many more before the Second World War. Seeing Stalin in action (and what followed him) put a damper on the idealism of many young Marxists. Back before World War II some caring young people joined The Communist Party here and joined The Abraham Lincoln Brigades to support Loyalist Spain against Franco. Back then they had hope that communism would truly be a system that took from each according to his abilities and gave to each according to his needs.

AGBF

I was trying (without any success) to find the traces of a young Finnish woman whose parents emigrated from Finland to the US, became communists here, then were lured to the Soviet Union (that was when Stalin planned invading Finland), then, when the Finnish campaign inevitably failed, they all were arrested and shot in Karelia. And there are many such stories.
The Rosenbergs who were executed for divulging the US atomic secrets to the USSR, and a more important couple, the Cohens, I am reading book about them, all came from that communist pool.
To add to it, during WWII, American Jews (and not only them) viewed the Soviet Union as the only force able to crash the Nazism. The tour of Meyerhold, the head of Jewish Chamber Theater, in the US in 1942 was very important. American Jews collected the money... many were sympathetic towards the communism. Meyerhold met with Oppenheimer and Leo Szillard, both working at Manhattan project and both very supportive of the Soviet Union. How was their naivete used? There are some books about it. Things rapidly changed after WWII, I think. But I view Americans as inherently susceptible to both communism and Nazism specifically because they never saw any in action.

 

[MollyMalone]

I wouldn't call him a SOB but he is wrong for protesting during the singing of our national anthem.... He doesn't wanna admit to himself that he is not good enough anymore to play QB in the the NFL.

No objective reason for him to "admit he's not good enough." E.g.,
https://www.sbnation.com/2017/8/14/16058454/colin-kaepernick-film-breakdown-free-agency
http://www.complex.com/sports/2017/08/kaepernick-is-better-than-most-quarterbacks/
Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are among those who think Colin Kaepernick should be playing:
http://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2...k-i-think-he-should-be-on-a-roster-right-now/
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...hope-he-gets-a-shot-to-play-in-the-nfl-again/

The Amish, many Mennonites, and many Quakers will not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the National Anthem. Yet, we don't hear Trump calling them sons of bitches or exhorting their employers to fire them because they're not standing with hand over heart.

Elliot
Using the race card in NFL is most ridiculous thing that I ever heard.... How many AAs are playing QB in the NFL? How many Asians are playing QB in the NFL? ...Thank you for not replying.

It's apparently beyond your ken (and it certainly seems to be a foreign concept for Trump), but there are indeed people who speak up, take action, even though the desired goal would not personally benefit them or their family.... may even be contrary to their own self interests. Quotes from August of last year:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.​

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap30...ck-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem

This stand wasn't because I feel like I'm being put down in any kind of way. This is because I'm seeing things happen to people that don't have a voice: people that don't have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change. So I'm in the position where I can do that, and I'm going to do that for people that can't.​

http://ninerswire.usatoday.com/2016...ick-addresses-sitting-during-national-anthem/

 

[AGBF]

But I view Americans as inherently susceptible to both communism and Nazism specifically because they never saw any in action.

You may not realize how harsh that sounds, or how prejudiced. I know that English is not your first language. We are not all uneducated and blind here in the United States. But it is especially unfair to condemn the intellectuals of my parents' generation, the people like the Rosenbergs who had not had the opportunity to see communism in action yet for failing to know all its flaws before the Russians or Chinese did. No one had lived through communism in the 1930's! And no one had lived through Nazism. I blame Americans for a lot, but not for failing to see all the flaws in communism before it was even tried.

 

[Dancing Fire]

IMO, He can protest all night long after the game ends. In fact , He can go protest 24/7 now.

 

[AGBF]

I loved your comments, Molly. I had been reading the articles about the Trump slurs on the athletes and the athletes fighting back in, "The New York Times" earlier and also the readers' comments. I love the comments! I hope Trump has to take on the whole NFL and the whole NBA! But he'll have to take me on, too. I am not leaving this up to the black people to handle. Or the athletes. I'll keep donating to The ACLU; The Southern Poverty Law Center; and Planned Parenthood. This fight will take all of us.

Link...https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/23/...version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

AGBF

 

[AGBF]

IMO, He can protest all night long after the game ends. In fact , He can go protest 24/7 now.

Actually, he can protest whenever and wherever he likes.

 

[Arkteia]

You may not realize how harsh that sounds, or how prejudiced. I know that English is not your first language. We are not all uneducated and blind here in the United States. But it is especially unfair to condemn the intellectuals of my parents' generation, the people like the Rosenbergs who had not had the opportunity to see communism in action yet for failing to know all its flaws before the Russians or Chinese did. No one had lived through communism in the 1930's! And no one had lived through Nazism. I blame Americans for a lot, but not for failing to see all the flaws in communism before it was even tried.

I apologize if i made anyone feel offended. Actually, i did not think about the past. I sometimes wonder why people living in the US in the 30-es joined the Communist party, but I blame the Great Depression.

No, AGBF, I am concerned about the future, not the past. I can not understand the Alt-right mentality, I just see that the movement is expanding. Sometimes (more rarely) I see posts about socialism. Historically, these two movements usually rise at the same time. This is what bothers me. Tell me if I am wrong - in fact, I shall be happy to be reassured.

P.S. About using certain groups. The book that I once read on the Internet does not exist in the same form any longer. These were memoirs of general Sudoplatov. In Stalin's time, he was the head of the Foreign Department of NKVD (later KGB). Far from an angel, but a very smart man. His memoirs in unbrushed form were what I read.
He wrote a lot about the operations of NKVD during WWII, as well as anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR shortly before Stalin's death. How Stalin came up with the idea of Jewish republic in the Crimea after the war would end, how Meyerhold was to mention it to Oppenheimer. And after WWII, Soviet Jews were accused of asking for Crimea for settlement by Stalin. Sudoplatov's wife was Jewish so he was sympathetic to Jews and opposed to the campaign.
I learned a lot from that book. But Russian officials dealt with this piece of information in an interesting way. They published it, officially, in a very brushed up form, in a book. Now it is still on the Internet, but in an official form - all precious facts about the hunt for nuclear secrets is gone. Half of the information about the anti-Semitic campaign is gone, too.

 

[AGBF]

I am concerned about the future, not the past. I can not understand the Alt-right mentality, I just see that the movement is expanding. Sometimes (more rarely) I see posts about socialism. Historically, these two movements usually rise at the same time. This is what bothers me. Tell me if I am wrong - in fact, I shall be happy to be reassured.

I was not offended by your comments. I simply took exception to them as they seemed illogical. Thank you for refining them.

You just said above that you rarely see posts about socialism. That is in keeping with your earlier comments about never having met an American who was actually on the "left" as you perceived "the left", that is as someone who held the views of a Russian or Chinese communist who wanted to take from the rich and divide up among the poor.

It seems to me that if Americans were so "susceptible" to communism that you would have met one who espoused it or read more postings about socialism!

In my opinion, there are far more Americans who are attracted to a home-grown neo-Nazism than to communism and, at least here in the United States, there is little correlation between the growth of groups of neo-Nazi thugs and that of pro-communists. That is not to say that there may not be a correlation between rising right wing and left wing (left-wing as defined by Americans) radicalism. I cannot comment on that with authority. But not that many Americans are enamoured with communism.

AGBF

 

[MollyMalone]

IMO, He can protest all night long after the game ends. In fact , He can go protest 24/7 now.

Why should he, in your opinion, refrain from "protesting" until after the game ends?

I'm hard pressed to think of anything less disruptive to the game than silently kneeling or sitting on the sidelines before the kick-off. Unlike Tim Tebow,

Kaepernick's kneeling has never halted the game on the field for even a millisecond.

 

[soxfan]

What an absolute insufferable idiot.

 

[t-c]

What an absolute insufferable idiot.

Maybe Trump is doing this to lower the price of NFL teams. He did try to buy one (I'm skeptical he actually had the money) but was rejected. And several articles have referred to his anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL when he was an owner in the USFL. Apparently that venture (USFL) failed as well and many people lost money -- which seems to be a pattern for Trump.

(You've got to be pretty desperate to get into the proverbial bed with DJT considering his success rate with new business ventures.)

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

In the 1930's it was the idea or ideal of communism that inspired belief in many corners of the West. It did not require a successful example, it only needed a logical philosophy for the intellectual class to get on board. Marx and Engels laid out a coherent philosophy that struck a chord with many. Ideas have power. However the rise of communism was to come in stages(dialectic) and before we can get to communism we go to socialism. Certainly, England is a good example of this progression. There were many communist sympathizers inside the Gov't(Philby & friends). They rejected Capitalism and turned to socialism. Other countries have gone the same way.

America is wedded to Capitalism, although we too, are becoming more socialistic every year. I think we have socialists on this board , but its rare to meet a communist. When I was in college we had the The Daily Worker, a communist paper given out for free on campus. I myself wanted to go to a cellblock meeting but was dissuaded by a wiser person who said it may bring trouble for me in the future.

Americans are susceptible to some ideas over time.

Annette

 

[AGBF]

Hi,

In the 1930's it was the idea or ideal of communism that inspired belief in many corners of the West. It did not require a successful example, it only needed a logical philosophy for the intellectual class to get on board. Marx and Engels laid out a coherent philosophy that struck a chord with many. Ideas have power.

The situation you describe above, Annette, is the same situation my parents were in when they were in college. It is also the situation that Ted Hall was in. If you read his obituary in "The New York Times" (which I did again last night) you will see that he says if he could have predicted Stalin's brutality, he might not have told the Soviet Union anything about The Manhattan Project, even to stop nuclear war. He was an idealist who thought that the only deterrent to the United States' bombing the Soviet Union and, possibly, China was for them to have the atom bomb as well as the for the US to have it.

Ted Hall did not go to college with my parents. Our families met much later, after my parents and the Halls were married and had had children. But I got to know them well. I had no idea who Ted Hall was in the world. He commuted to New York City on the train with my father and was the gentle, thoughtful father of my friend, Ruth. He worked in the backyard when we played outside. I rmember discussing the universe with him. Maybe I knew he was some kind of scientist. I must have said I couldn't imagine when it began and he said that we were used to things having beginnings but perhaps it had not had a beginning.

Intelligent, idealistic college students in the 1930's had a lot of hope in communism. And not just in the United States. If one looks at Europe one will see that there young people are, in my opinion, often "susceptible" to communism. My husband grew up in Italy. As a young man he considered himself a communist. The mayor of Bologna was (and still may be) a communist. The Communist Party is often represented in European parliaments. My husband grew up knowing many communist songs. Even I learned the words to, "Bandiera Rossa" (Red Flag) which my father used to sing around the house when i was little! But by the time I met my husband he had gone to business school. Not that all Europeans cease to be communists. Some do; some don't. Most of his friends, by the time I met them, were no longer ardent communists , however. They appeared to have civil service or university jobs and to have many, many vacation days!

Ted Hall Obituary...http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/10/world/theodore-hall-prodigy-and-atomic-spy-dies-at-74.html?mcubz=1

Bandiera Rossa...

AGBF

 

[E B]

Why should he, in your opinion, refrain from "protesting" until after the game ends?

Because then he and others don't have to see it. He and others don't care why they're protesting. Half of them (and that's probably generous) STILL think they're "protesting the national anthem."

This is their time on the national stage, and the NFL is behind them. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, DF. But that's kind of the point.

 

[Arkteia]

I was not offended by your comments. I simply took exception to them as they seemed illogical. Thank you for refining them.

You just said above that you rarely see posts about socialism. That is in keeping with your earlier comments about never having met an American who was actually on the "left" as you perceived "the left", that is as someone who held the views of a Russian or Chinese communist who wanted to take from the rich and divide up among the poor.

It seems to me that if Americans were so "susceptible" to communism that you would have met one who espoused it or read more postings about socialism!

In my opinion, there are far more Americans who are attracted to a home-grown neo-Nazism than to communism and, at least here in the United States, there is little correlation between the growth of groups of neo-Nazi thugs and that of pro-communists. That is not to say that there may not be a correlation between rising right wing and left wing (left-wing as defined by Americans) radicalism. I cannot comment on that with authority. But not that many Americans are enamoured with communism.

AGBF

I am very much concerned about the growth of neo-Nazism, and I don't quite understand why it happened. (Its founders went through Aryan Brotherhood in prisons - I believe that prison system favours segregation into gangs according to racial principles because it is easier to keep control over the inmates this way. And of course, there are many other reasons that one can not fully get into here)

As to communism, never say never. I told myself that the only reason I could ever see myself leaving this country would be in case of extreme left coming to power, because I know what it entails. I wold not be surprised if we shall see more extremely socialistic ideas in 2020 though because the pendulum is now sharply to the right.

Somehow these two things, neonazism and leftism, are connected, historically. Both are alien for the US. Bit let us hope they don't take roots. Today the results of German elections are out. German nationalists got 13%. Merkel won, but the higher prognosis for their extreme nationalists were 10%.

 

[Calliecake]

@t-c I seriously doubt Trump would have said anything if the majority of NFL and NBA players were white. Race and sex always come into play with Trump. No one is disrespecting the flag. Trump once again missed the entire point of why the players are doing this. Trump has gone all out to condemn the NFL and NBA players. Why was this same amount of anger not shown against the white supremacists in Charlottsvile?

Everyday he pushes us closer to a nuclear war and his damn party does nothing to stop him. Sending fighter jets closer than they have ever gone toward North Korea is only going to make them feel more threatened. His rhetoric is definitely having a negative impact. He has been told this repeatedly by his advisors and generals, and yet his tweets and speeches do nothing to support what his experts are asking him to do. I'm beginning to feel like our country has the bigger lunatic. He doesn't know the first thing about diplomacy and franking he doesn't want to do anything to ease the tensions. This president doesn't want peace. His actions show that loud and clear. Apparently his supporters feel the same way. You certainly don't hear about them speaking out against Trump.

The people who voted for him thinking he was the "lesser of two evils" are delusional. He has the intelligence and diplomacy skills of a third grader and they knew this when they cast their vote for him.

There aren't enough expletives to describe this president.

 

[monarch64]

Trump is a white supremacist and this issue of the NFL player protests makes it blatantly obvious. If you're a white Christian kneeling and praising after a play, awesome, that's what this country is about! If you're a black man kneeling to protest the mistreatment of blacks in the country, congrats, you should be fired because you aren't conforming to what 'Merica is supposed to be about--white christians. I mean could it get any more obvious?