morepork wrote:Rowan, you probably fuck off with that broad brush. People in America are well aware of the military industrial complex and the need to reign it in. There is still a beating heart in the 4th estate under all that reality TV and info-news, and there is dialogue on the ground. I see it because I live here. The racist fire and brimstone wankers make the mainstream media, but they are not a majority. I agree with you on the need to shake up the establishment and get power back in the people's hands, but sweet jesus, not every American is a clone of Carl Rove FFS. Remember there is a lot of diversity in this country.
This. Very well said Porkster.
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 6:46 pm
by Vengeful Glutton
If it was to be reigned in a lot of jobs would be lost. That's the reality of it.
Same as Tommy's MIC.
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:41 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:43 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:51 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:52 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:53 pm
by morepork
Jill Stein makes some of the right noises, but I can't quite filter through the interweb noise regarding some of her homeopathy and vaccine statements. Yes, I know she is a pediatrician, but Ben Carson is a neurosurgen.
Anyway, the Federal Reserve would have her assassinated if she got too close to government.
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:53 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:57 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:58 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 8:59 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:02 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Another good piece here:
The most consequential statement by Secretary Clinton in last night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our fight against ISIS.”
It would do none of the above. A US attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Syria would, as Secretary Clinton once cautioned a Goldman Sachs audience, “kill a lot of Syrians,” and, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, lead to a war with Russia. If the US has not been invited into a country to establish a “no-fly zone” such an action is, in fact, an invasion, an act of war.
It is abundantly clear from our dark alliance with Saudi Arabia and our conduct in support of jihadists in Syria that our current leaders have learned nothing from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya as we prepare to plunge head-long into the abyss of a world war.
Our international relations are built upon lies to promote regime changes, the fantasy of a unipolar world ruled by America, and a blank check for the national security state.
As others prepare for war, we must prepare for peace. We must answer the mindless call to arms with a thoughtful, soulful call to resist the coming build up for war. A new, resolute peace movement must arise, become visible and challenge those who would make war inevitable.
We must not wait until the Inauguration to begin to build a new peace movement in America.
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Another good piece here:
The most consequential statement by Secretary Clinton in last night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our fight against ISIS.”
It would do none of the above. A US attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Syria would, as Secretary Clinton once cautioned a Goldman Sachs audience, “kill a lot of Syrians,” and, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, lead to a war with Russia. If the US has not been invited into a country to establish a “no-fly zone” such an action is, in fact, an invasion, an act of war.
It is abundantly clear from our dark alliance with Saudi Arabia and our conduct in support of jihadists in Syria that our current leaders have learned nothing from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya as we prepare to plunge head-long into the abyss of a world war.
Our international relations are built upon lies to promote regime changes, the fantasy of a unipolar world ruled by America, and a blank check for the national security state.
As others prepare for war, we must prepare for peace. We must answer the mindless call to arms with a thoughtful, soulful call to resist the coming build up for war. A new, resolute peace movement must arise, become visible and challenge those who would make war inevitable.
We must not wait until the Inauguration to begin to build a new peace movement in America.
She has big ambitions, which she does not spell out for fear of frightening part of the electorate, but which are perfectly understood by her closest aides and biggest donors.
She wants to achieve regime change in Russia.
She enjoys the support of most of the State Department and much of the Pentagon, and Congress is ready to go.
The method: a repeat of the 1979 Brezinski ploy, which consisted of luring Moscow into Afghanistan, in order to get the Russians bogged down in their “Vietnam”. As the Russians are a much more peace-loving people, largely because of what they suffered in two World Wars, the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was very unpopular and can be seen as a cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This led to the temporary reign of the drunken Boris Yeltsin who – as recounted in Strobe Talbott’s memoirs – was putty in the hands of Bill Clinton. Hillary would like to renew that sort of relationship. Putin is an obstacle.
The new version of this old strategy is to use Russia’s totally legal and justifiable efforts to save Syria from destruction in order to cause enough Russian casualties to incite anti-Putin reaction in Russia leading to his overthrow. (Note State Department spokesman John Kirby’s recent warning that Russia will soon be “sending troops home in body bags”.)
That is the prime reason why the United States is doing everything to keep the Syrian war dragging on and on. The joint Syrian-Russian offensive to recapture the rebel-held Eastern sections of Aleppo might lead to an early end of the war. U.S. reaction: a huge propaganda campaign condemning this normal military operation as “criminal”, while driving ISIS forces out of Mosul with attacks from the East, so that they will move westward into Syria, to fight against the Assad government.
Ukraine is another theater for weakening Putin.
Hillary Clinton’s ambition – made explicit by her own and her close aides’ statements about Libya in emails at the time – is to gain her place in history as victorious strategist of “regime change”, using open and covert methods (“smart power”), thus bringing recalcitrant regions under control of the “exceptional, good” nation, the United States.
This ambition is backed by possession of nuclear weapons.
I am by no means saying that this plan will succeed. But it is very clearly the plan.
The electoral circus is a distraction from such crucially serious matters.
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Another good piece here:
The most consequential statement by Secretary Clinton in last night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our fight against ISIS.”
It would do none of the above. A US attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Syria would, as Secretary Clinton once cautioned a Goldman Sachs audience, “kill a lot of Syrians,” and, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, lead to a war with Russia. If the US has not been invited into a country to establish a “no-fly zone” such an action is, in fact, an invasion, an act of war.
It is abundantly clear from our dark alliance with Saudi Arabia and our conduct in support of jihadists in Syria that our current leaders have learned nothing from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya as we prepare to plunge head-long into the abyss of a world war.
Our international relations are built upon lies to promote regime changes, the fantasy of a unipolar world ruled by America, and a blank check for the national security state.
As others prepare for war, we must prepare for peace. We must answer the mindless call to arms with a thoughtful, soulful call to resist the coming build up for war. A new, resolute peace movement must arise, become visible and challenge those who would make war inevitable.
We must not wait until the Inauguration to begin to build a new peace movement in America.
She has big ambitions, which she does not spell out for fear of frightening part of the electorate, but which are perfectly understood by her closest aides and biggest donors.
She wants to achieve regime change in Russia.
She enjoys the support of most of the State Department and much of the Pentagon, and Congress is ready to go.
The method: a repeat of the 1979 Brezinski ploy, which consisted of luring Moscow into Afghanistan, in order to get the Russians bogged down in their “Vietnam”. As the Russians are a much more peace-loving people, largely because of what they suffered in two World Wars, the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was very unpopular and can be seen as a cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This led to the temporary reign of the drunken Boris Yeltsin who – as recounted in Strobe Talbott’s memoirs – was putty in the hands of Bill Clinton. Hillary would like to renew that sort of relationship. Putin is an obstacle.
The new version of this old strategy is to use Russia’s totally legal and justifiable efforts to save Syria from destruction in order to cause enough Russian casualties to incite anti-Putin reaction in Russia leading to his overthrow. (Note State Department spokesman John Kirby’s recent warning that Russia will soon be “sending troops home in body bags”.)
That is the prime reason why the United States is doing everything to keep the Syrian war dragging on and on. The joint Syrian-Russian offensive to recapture the rebel-held Eastern sections of Aleppo might lead to an early end of the war. U.S. reaction: a huge propaganda campaign condemning this normal military operation as “criminal”, while driving ISIS forces out of Mosul with attacks from the East, so that they will move westward into Syria, to fight against the Assad government.
Ukraine is another theater for weakening Putin.
Hillary Clinton’s ambition – made explicit by her own and her close aides’ statements about Libya in emails at the time – is to gain her place in history as victorious strategist of “regime change”, using open and covert methods (“smart power”), thus bringing recalcitrant regions under control of the “exceptional, good” nation, the United States.
This ambition is backed by possession of nuclear weapons.
I am by no means saying that this plan will succeed. But it is very clearly the plan.
The electoral circus is a distraction from such crucially serious matters.
The most consequential statement by Secretary Clinton in last night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our fight against ISIS.”
It would do none of the above. A US attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Syria would, as Secretary Clinton once cautioned a Goldman Sachs audience, “kill a lot of Syrians,” and, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dunford, lead to a war with Russia. If the US has not been invited into a country to establish a “no-fly zone” such an action is, in fact, an invasion, an act of war.
It is abundantly clear from our dark alliance with Saudi Arabia and our conduct in support of jihadists in Syria that our current leaders have learned nothing from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya as we prepare to plunge head-long into the abyss of a world war.
Our international relations are built upon lies to promote regime changes, the fantasy of a unipolar world ruled by America, and a blank check for the national security state.
As others prepare for war, we must prepare for peace. We must answer the mindless call to arms with a thoughtful, soulful call to resist the coming build up for war. A new, resolute peace movement must arise, become visible and challenge those who would make war inevitable.
We must not wait until the Inauguration to begin to build a new peace movement in America.
She has big ambitions, which she does not spell out for fear of frightening part of the electorate, but which are perfectly understood by her closest aides and biggest donors.
She wants to achieve regime change in Russia.
She enjoys the support of most of the State Department and much of the Pentagon, and Congress is ready to go.
The method: a repeat of the 1979 Brezinski ploy, which consisted of luring Moscow into Afghanistan, in order to get the Russians bogged down in their “Vietnam”. As the Russians are a much more peace-loving people, largely because of what they suffered in two World Wars, the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was very unpopular and can be seen as a cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This led to the temporary reign of the drunken Boris Yeltsin who – as recounted in Strobe Talbott’s memoirs – was putty in the hands of Bill Clinton. Hillary would like to renew that sort of relationship. Putin is an obstacle.
The new version of this old strategy is to use Russia’s totally legal and justifiable efforts to save Syria from destruction in order to cause enough Russian casualties to incite anti-Putin reaction in Russia leading to his overthrow. (Note State Department spokesman John Kirby’s recent warning that Russia will soon be “sending troops home in body bags”.)
That is the prime reason why the United States is doing everything to keep the Syrian war dragging on and on. The joint Syrian-Russian offensive to recapture the rebel-held Eastern sections of Aleppo might lead to an early end of the war. U.S. reaction: a huge propaganda campaign condemning this normal military operation as “criminal”, while driving ISIS forces out of Mosul with attacks from the East, so that they will move westward into Syria, to fight against the Assad government.
Ukraine is another theater for weakening Putin.
Hillary Clinton’s ambition – made explicit by her own and her close aides’ statements about Libya in emails at the time – is to gain her place in history as victorious strategist of “regime change”, using open and covert methods (“smart power”), thus bringing recalcitrant regions under control of the “exceptional, good” nation, the United States.
This ambition is backed by possession of nuclear weapons.
I am by no means saying that this plan will succeed. But it is very clearly the plan.
The electoral circus is a distraction from such crucially serious matters.
She has big ambitions, which she does not spell out for fear of frightening part of the electorate, but which are perfectly understood by her closest aides and biggest donors.
She wants to achieve regime change in Russia.
She enjoys the support of most of the State Department and much of the Pentagon, and Congress is ready to go.
The method: a repeat of the 1979 Brezinski ploy, which consisted of luring Moscow into Afghanistan, in order to get the Russians bogged down in their “Vietnam”. As the Russians are a much more peace-loving people, largely because of what they suffered in two World Wars, the Russian involvement in Afghanistan was very unpopular and can be seen as a cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This led to the temporary reign of the drunken Boris Yeltsin who – as recounted in Strobe Talbott’s memoirs – was putty in the hands of Bill Clinton. Hillary would like to renew that sort of relationship. Putin is an obstacle.
The new version of this old strategy is to use Russia’s totally legal and justifiable efforts to save Syria from destruction in order to cause enough Russian casualties to incite anti-Putin reaction in Russia leading to his overthrow. (Note State Department spokesman John Kirby’s recent warning that Russia will soon be “sending troops home in body bags”.)
That is the prime reason why the United States is doing everything to keep the Syrian war dragging on and on. The joint Syrian-Russian offensive to recapture the rebel-held Eastern sections of Aleppo might lead to an early end of the war. U.S. reaction: a huge propaganda campaign condemning this normal military operation as “criminal”, while driving ISIS forces out of Mosul with attacks from the East, so that they will move westward into Syria, to fight against the Assad government.
Ukraine is another theater for weakening Putin.
Hillary Clinton’s ambition – made explicit by her own and her close aides’ statements about Libya in emails at the time – is to gain her place in history as victorious strategist of “regime change”, using open and covert methods (“smart power”), thus bringing recalcitrant regions under control of the “exceptional, good” nation, the United States.
This ambition is backed by possession of nuclear weapons.
I am by no means saying that this plan will succeed. But it is very clearly the plan.
The electoral circus is a distraction from such crucially serious matters.
rowan wrote:rowan wrote:
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:14 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
Excellent reporting:
On October 20, 2011, Libya’s Muammar al-Gaddafi was brutally murdered by a mob of NATO-backed ‘rebels’, after first being beaten and violated in the most barbaric fashion. History leaves no doubt that not only was the Libyan leader murdered on this day but Libya itself.
The regime-change crew who dominate Western governments have a long indictment sheet against their names. Since 9/11 they have wrought havoc and human misery on a grand scale in their determination to reshape and own a world that has never been theirs to own. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya – Syria currently embroiled in a pitiless conflict for its survival as a secular, non-sectarian state – this is the miserable legacy of nations which speak the language of democracy while practising the politics of domination.
Of the aforementioned victims of Western imperialism, there is a strong argument to be made that Libya’s destruction constitutes an especially grievous crime. After all, in 2010, the year before it experienced its ‘revolution’, the United Nations Development Programme considered Libya a high development country in the Middle East and North Africa. In concrete terms this status translated to a literacy rate of 88.4%, a life expectancy of 74.5 years, gender equality, and various other positive indicators. In addition, Libya enjoyed 4.2% economic growth in 2010 and could boast of foreign assets in excess of $150 billion.
Compare this record to Libya in 2016. According to testimony provided by US Army General David Rodriguez to the US Senate Armed Services Committee in March, it is a failed state, with the general estimating it would take ‘“10 years or so” to achieve long-term stability in what is a “fractured society”’.
There is currently no single government or authority in Libya whose writ runs in the entire country. Instead three competing authorities control their own fiefdoms. The internationally recognized government is the Government of National Accord (GNC), led by Fayez al-Sarraj, is based in the capital, Tripoli. There is also the Government of National Salvation, led by Khalifa Ghwell, which is also based in Tripoli. The third centre of power, meanwhile, is located in Tobruk in the east of the country. It is headed by an anti-Islamist general, Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army (LNA). Economically, oil revenues, responsible for 90% of revenue under Gaddafi, have halved, violence is widespread, and since 2011 Daesh has managed to gain a foothold, though in recent months the terrorist organization has come under huge pressure in its stronghold of Sirte from forces representing the GNC.
The impact of the chaos that has engulfed the country since Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered can be measured by the flood of Libyans who have attempted the perilous journey across the Mediterranean with the objective of reaching Europe. In the process untold thousands have perished.
UN Security Council Resolution 1973, passed in March 2011, marked the end of the Arab Spring and the beginning of the Arab Winter. The mass and popular demonstrations that succeeded in toppling Tunisian dictator Ben Ali and is Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak were not replicated in Libya. Instead, in Benghazi, where the anti-Gaddafi movement was centred, Islamists predominated. There was no nationwide mass movement in Libya, such as those that swept across Tunisia and Egypt, and no popular support for toppling a government and leader who presided over a society that enjoyed the highest standard of living of any in Africa.
Loyalist Gaddafi forces were defeated by NATO not the opposition forces emanating from Benghazi. Indeed it was at the point at which the country’s armed forces were approaching Benghazi, preparatory to crushing the uprising, when NATO intervened – based on the lie of protecting civilians when in truth it was intent on regime change.
Gaddafi’s crime in the eyes of the West was not that he was an authoritarian dictator – how could it be when their closet ally in the region is Saudi Arabia? His crime in their eyes, it was revealed in a tranche of classified Clinton emails, released by Wikileaks in January of this year, was his intention of establishing a gold-backed currency to compete with the euro and the dollar as an international reserve currency in Africa. In this regard the then French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and then US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, were key actors in pushing for NATO intervention. Libyan oil was also a factor.
The classified emails prove beyond any doubt that what took place in Libya was a monstrous crime for which those responsible have yet to be held accountable. On the contrary, Sarkozy is currently in the process of preparing a political return as French president, while Hillary Clinton is favorite to win the race for the White House against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency.
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
The New York Times editorial page warns this weekend that Hillary Clinton is dangerous because of her “establishmentarian type of folly.”
Ross Douthat opines:
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump’s authoritarian unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They’re the dangers of elite groupthink, of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They’re the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn’t recognize itself as either, because it’s convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it cannot possibly be folly.
Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq War, which liberals prefer to remember as a conflict conjured by a neoconservative cabal, was actually the work of a bipartisan interventionist consensus, pushed hard by George W. Bush but embraced as well by a large slice of center-left opinion that included Tony Blair and more than half of Senate Democrats.
Likewise the financial crisis: Whether you blame financial-services deregulation or happy-go-lucky housing policy (or both), the policies that helped inflate and pop the bubble were embraced by both wings of the political establishment. Likewise with the euro, the European common currency, a terrible idea that only cranks and Little Englanders dared oppose until the Great Recession exposed it as a potentially economy-sinking folly. Likewise with Angela Merkel’s grand and reckless open-borders gesture just last year: She was the heroine of a thousand profiles even as she delivered her continent to polarization and violence.
This record of elite folly — which doesn’t even include lesser case studies like our splendid little war in Libya — is a big part of why the United States has a “let’s try crazy” candidate in this election, and why there are so many Trumpian parties thriving on European soil.
The New York Times has endorsed Hillary Clinton, with an endorsement that sounded remarkably similar to Clinton campaign literature.
The Clinton campaign is running commercials showing a woman saying that she does not agree broadly with Clinton, “but she’s reasonable.” Oprah Winfrey endorsed her as well, saying, “You don’t have to like her.”
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
From the Guardian:
released by WikiLeaks on Saturday, show some of the attention her team paid to courting African American voters.
WikiLeaks praised by Sean Hannity and David Duke after Clinton revelations
Read more
There were worries about Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ appeal to that historically Democratic voter group and angst over whether Clinton should give a speech on race relations. A South Carolina Democratic party official voiced concerns that Clinton hadn’t visited a particular region of the state.
The emails were stolen from the email account of John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, as part of a series of high-profile computer hacks of Democratic targets that US intelligence officials say were orchestrated by Russia, with the intent to influence the 8 November election.
It was impossible to authenticate each hacked email that WikiLeaks published, but Democrats have openly acknowledged they were hacked and have not pointed to any specific case where an email was altered to inflict political damage.
Some of the emails released on Saturday concerned a debate over whether the candidate should give a speech on race.
Chief speechwriter Dan Schwerin emailed Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and others in February 2016 to say that, as conceived, the speech would demonstrate Clinton’s “sustained and comprehensive commitment” to improving race relations and her lifelong sympathy toward the plight of minorities in the US.
Both former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were clear that the speech shouldn’t be “a big mea culpa”. The former president also said: “We shouldn’t try to defend the indefensible.”
Schwerin said adviser Minyon Moore had raised tough questions about the wisdom of making the speech because it could “unintentionally end up elevating questions that aren’t yet being widely asked and introduce new damaging information, especially super predator, to a lot more voters”.
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Hillary Clinton has ‘nothing to say about Wikileaks’
In a 1996 speech about Bill Clinton’s crime bill when she was first lady, Hillary Clinton described young people in gangs as “super-predators”. Some African Americans find the term offensive and have sought during the campaign to hold her accountable for it. Hillary Clinton has said she regrets using the term.
After a “gut check” conversation with Moore and talks with policy advisers Jake Sullivan and Maya Harris, Schwerin said in the email that the campaign hierarchy was “mostly persuaded” by Moore’s concerns. Instead, he suggested, a decision to push the supreme court nomination issue could replace the race speech.
Schwerin closed his memo with the idea that “if we’re slipping fast, maybe it’s worth rolling the dice and doing the speech. If we’re holding relatively steady, maybe we see if we can ride this out without doing the speech”.
Clinton offered a detailed plan to overcome racial disparities in a February speech in Harlem.
In an apparent effort to court young African American voters in South Carolina’s Pee Dee region, meanwhile, Clinton staffers promised Jamie Harrison, the state’s Democratic party chairman, that his area would not be overlooked. They also offered up some bold names in black entertainment who could stump for votes.
In an email from 28 January 2016, Brynne Craig, deputy director of state campaigns for Hillary for America, summarized a conversation with Harrison, who was unhappy that Clinton had not visited the Pee Dee region, the north-eastern corner of the state, about 100 miles east of Columbia, the state capital.
Craig said he assured Harrison that such a visit was a top priority for the former first lady or her husband. Clinton visited the region in late February and later won the state’s primary.
Craig said Harrison also mentioned the need to bring younger surrogates into the state, not just well-known and older politicians. He said he offered Harrison a partial list of black entertainers who had been asked to travel to the state, including singer Usher, actors Anthony Anderson and Gabrielle Union and athletes Alonzo Mourning and Grant Hill.
Craig wrote: “I feel confident we will be able to increase the amount of surrogates we have in South Carolina – more importantly the RIGHT kind.”
US officially accuses Russia of hacking DNC and interfering with election
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Worries about Bernie Sanders’ appeal to black voters remained strong throughout the primary, although Clinton’s support from that group remained strong.
In a July email, Podesta fretted to other campaign staffers about Sanders, who had challenged Clinton through to the end of the primary process with an anti-Wall Street, anti-establishment message with strong appeal to progressives.
In the email, Podesta wrote: “He’ll be at Sharpton rallies pretty soon,” referring to civil rights activist Al Sharpton. “Still think we should do something with him on VRA [Voting Rights Act] anniversary.”
Sanders visited Dallas and Houston in July for a series of town-hall meetings in southern cities to help boost his support.
Clinton called in to Sharpton’s nationally syndicated radio show on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act on 6 August, to appeal to African Americans to turn out to vote during the primaries. Her support among African Americans in the south helped her gain a big delegate advantage over Sanders.
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:21 pm
by morepork
Coco wrote:
morepork wrote:Rowan, you probably fuck off with that broad brush. People in America are well aware of the military industrial complex and the need to reign it in. There is still a beating heart in the 4th estate under all that reality TV and info-news, and there is dialogue on the ground. I see it because I live here. The racist fire and brimstone wankers make the mainstream media, but they are not a majority. I agree with you on the need to shake up the establishment and get power back in the people's hands, but sweet jesus, not every American is a clone of Carl Rove FFS. Remember there is a lot of diversity in this country.
This. Very well said Porkster.
You are my boi Coco.
Re: Clinton
Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2016 9:23 pm
by rowan
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
rowan wrote:
I should add to this, btw, that I attended university in America, and although that was some time ago, I have spent the past two decades living and working within a British/American-dominated expat community, so that I've actually become far more in tune with events in those two nations than I am with my own.
I just wonder why people can't discuss things without trying to silence others with accusations of 'sexism' or 'anti-Americanism' and so on. It's like trying to have a discussion on Israel and being labeled 'anti-semitist' by those who don't want to hear what you have to say. I was responding to what appeared to me a fairly flippant comment about the likely consequences of Clinton's imminent "election" (I peronally regard it as an appointment). There is, of course no prejudice against race, gender, religion or nationality in my views on Clinton. I have been at pains to spell out exactly why I am opposed to her "election" (on humanitarian grounds), and I've also mentioned several times that my preferred candidate would be Jill Stein. Incidentally, almost a million Americans followed her live broadcast on Twitter on Wednesday night, though it barely received a mention in the media...
The chief complaint that critics make about the Clinton Foundation is that the former and perhaps future presidents engaged in a “pay-to-play” scheme, whereby donors—many of them foreign governments—would contribute money to the charity in exchange for access to Bill or Hillary Clinton, or worse, beneficial treatment from the State Department.
On Thursday, hacked emails from WikiLeaks suggest that is precisely what happened when the king of Morocco agreed to host a Clinton Global Initiative summit and give $12 million, but only if Hillary Clinton attended the May 2015 meeting.
RELATED STORY
Clinton Still Hasn't Faced Questions About Pay-to-Play Head On
“No matter what happens, she will be in Morocco hosting CGI on May 5-7, 2015,” Huma Abedin, a top Hillary Clinton aide, wrote in a November 2014 email to several other advisers, including campaign chairman John Podesta. “Her presence was a condition for the Moroccans to proceed so there is no going back on this.”
The timing of the summit was important because Hillary Clinton’s inner circle was planning for the formal launch of her presidential campaign and wanted to clear her schedule of paid speaking engagements and commitments to the foundation, particularly those that could cause political controversy. In January 2015, Abedin followed up with another email explaining in more detail why the future Democratic nominee couldn’t simply back out of the event in Morocco:
Just to give you some context, the condition upon which the Moroccans agreed to host the meeting was her participation. If hrc was not part if it, meeting was a non-starter. CGI also wasn't pushing for a meeting in Morocco and it wasn't their first choice. This was HRC's idea, our office approached the Moroccans and they 100 percent believe they are doing this at her request. The King has personally committed approx $12 million both for the endowment and to support the meeting. It will break a lot of china to back out now when we had so many opportunities to do it in the past few months.
And then, in what appears to be a rare venting of frustration by Abedin toward Hillary Clinton (at least in the thousands of hacked Podesta emails), she wrote this about her boss: “She created this mess and she knows it.”
Ultimately, Clinton’s aides prevailed upon her, and she sent Bill and Chelsea Clinton in her place. But this exchange about Morocco, first reported by The New York Post, is the clearest example yet in the emails posted by WikiLeaks of the type of arrangement that people find most, well, icky about the Clintons. Bill and Hillary wanted a deep-pocketed donor to make a large contribution and foot the bill for a ritzy conference, and the king of Morocco wanted access to the woman who, then as now, was the leading candidate to be the next president of the United States. The Clintons didn’t apparently care that, as the Post noted, Morocco had a spotty record on human rights. The State Department has cited the Moroccan government for widespread corruption, and the government-owned mining company that paid for the CGI meeting has been cited for its own human-rights abuses.
The Clinton campaign declined to comment specifically on the episode, instead delivering the blanket statement it issues on all WikiLeaks emails—blaming Russia for hacking Podesta’s emails and asking whether Donald Trump’s campaign was involved in the breach. Yet based on Hillary Clinton’s staunch defense of the foundation as “a world-renowned charity” at Wednesday night’s debate, she would likely argue that the money from Morocco went to a good cause; that stronger ties promote U.S. leverage; and that her record speaking out in support of human rights is well established.
All of that may be true, and nothing in the exchange appears to be illegal. Hillary Clinton wasn’t secretary of state at the time, and there is no evidence in the emails that Morocco gained any official concessions in terms of U.S. policy other than potentially the good will of the next president. But the image of the Clintons seeking out a foreign head of state for cash is not a good look. And as Abedin pointed out, Hillary Clinton “knows it.”
That is why the Moroccan episode is such a quintessentially Clinton controversy. It’s not as if they are tone-deaf politicians. Like so many other “scandals”—from the alleged renting out of the Lincoln bedroom in 1990s, to the pardon of Marc Rich, to Hillary’s use of a private email server—the Clintons seem to know that what they are doing will look bad and raise questions of ethics and corruption, and yet convinced of their own righteousness, they do it anyway. And the fact that these lapses continue to repeat themselves so long into their time in the public arena offers little hope that the next four years of a possible Clinton White House would be any different.
Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
Are you enjoying being played at your own game, by the way?
rowan wrote:Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
rowan wrote:Are you enjoying being played at your own game, by the way?
rowan wrote:Coco has only expressed her own ignorance of the English language and attempted to discredit somebody who doesn't think as she does by misinterpreting what they've written. You can't have an intelligent discussion on that basis.
If the majority of Americans were intent on reining in the military industrial complex there is no way they would be voting for a serial war criminal.
But contrary to the juvenile, over-defensive accusation, I haven't been painting anybody with a broad brush. There wasn't even an accusation against anybody in my comment, in fact.
If you understood the English language at all, you would have noted that the word structure I used was a reduced defining relative clause - or a defining relative clause omitting the relative pronoun.
"I can understand privileged white folks in North America & Europe not being worried"
That means I was referring to a specific group of people: those privileged white folk in North America and Europe who are not worried about a war criminal (intent on removing Assad, btw) coming to power.
And that was in response to a comment that said war criminal's imminent "election" was of no concern to him/her personally. Now, had I used a non-defining relative clause structure, ie with commas, then that would have been a generalisation.
Therefore your accusation was based on a misinterpretation of my comment owing to your own ignorance of the finer points of English grammar. I'm sure you'll be man enough to apologise.
Meanwhile, this is a good piece on Clinton's involvement in the destruction of Libya - and a good example of why her imminent "election" worries me a great deal, living on the edge of the Middle East as I do:
"Of the two, it is Clinton who was filmed clapping her hands and laughing at the news of Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011. It is Clinton who pressed for the military intervention that ended in Libya’s destruction. And it is Hillary Clinton who has the gall to present herself as a moral giant in comparison to her rival for the US presidency."
ndrew Harnik/AP
Associated Press
Sunday 16 October 2016 21.18 BST Last modified on Saturday 22 October 2016 16.46 BST
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Hillary Clinton avoided direct criticism of Wall Street as she examined the causes and responses to the 2008 financial crisis during a series of paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, according to transcripts released by WikiLeaks.
Analysis Clinton senses big victory after Trump's week of self-inflicted defeat
Republican in tailspin over lewd remarks and alleged sexual misconduct as one GOP strategist says ‘any other Democrat would be 15 points ahead, nationwide’
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Three transcripts, released Saturday as part of the hack of her campaign chairman’s emails, did not contain any damning revelations showing she was unduly influenced by contributions from the banking industry, as her Republican opponent Donald Trump has said. Still, her soft-handed approach in the speeches may remind liberals of fears, raised by her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, that the party’s nominee is too close to Wall Street to be an effective check on its excesses if elected.
In October 2013, the transcripts show, Clinton told bankers she had “great relations” and worked closely with Wall Street as New York’s senator, and said “the jury is still out” on whether the Dodd-Frank financial reforms, enacted after the crisis, were appropriate. She said more openness from the start could have prevented the uproar on Wall Street over those reforms.
“What happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening? You guys help us figure it out, and let’s make sure that we do it right this time,” she told the bankers, according to the transcripts.
Working to relate her speech to her audience, Clinton likened her experience as secretary of state to finance, saying: “It’s like anybody’s balance sheet,” with both opportunities and potential liabilities. In one exchange, a conference participant from Texas told Clinton that she had “the honor to raise money for you” during her 2008 presidential campaign.
Clinton responded: “You are the smartest people.”
In the hard-fought Democratic primary, Sanders repeatedly called on Clinton to release the transcripts of her speeches to Wall Street, some of which earned her hundreds of thousands of dollars. In an ironic twist, the transcripts ended up becoming public because her campaign aides had distributed them among themselves in an effort to prepare for any attacks she might face. Those internal campaign emails were then leaked in the hack of campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails.
Clinton’s campaign neither confirmed nor denied that the speech transcripts and leaked Podesta emails were authentic. Clinton’s team has accused Russia’s government of hacking Podesta’s emails, and the Obama administration has formally blamed Moscow for a series of breaches affecting US political groups.
“There is no getting around it: Donald Trump is cheering on a Russian attempt to influence our election through a crime reminiscent of Watergate, but on a more massive scale,” said a Clinton spokesman, Glen Caplin.
The transcripts, all from 2013, include speeches and question-and-answer sessions with Clinton at a Builders and Innovators Summit, an Alternative Investment Management Summit and a gathering of CEOs, all hosted by Goldman Sachs.
In another speech, Clinton said that after 2010 leak of US diplomatic cables, she had to go on an “apology tour” while serving as Barack Obama’s secretary of state.
In those cables, US officials and diplomats characterized some foreign leaders as “vain, egotistical, power hungry, corrupt. And we knew they were. This was not fiction.”
“I had grown men cry,” Clinton recalled. “I mean, literally. ‘I am a friend of America, and you say these things about me?’”
Clinton said she apologized to world leaders by saying ambassadors “get carried away – they want to all be literary people”.
Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, then told Clinton that she had put on “an Italian accent”.
“Have a sense of humor,” Clinton replied.
“And so you said, Silvio,” Blankfein answered, alluding to the then Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
She praised other leaders, including Chinese president Xi Jinping, who had assumed power in the fall of 2012. Clinton described Xi as “a more sophisticated, more effective public leader” than his predecessor, Hu Jintao, and said that he could “work a room”.
“You can have him make small talk with you, which he has done with me,” she said.
Clinton also told bankers that she would have liked to see the US intervene in Syria “as covertly as is possible” – and complained about reports to the press.
“We used to be much better at this than we are now,” she said. “Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: look what we’re doing and I want credit for it.”
