On 4/27/2017 5:08 PM, jmschristophers@gmail.com wrote:

It's called 'Manufacturing consent' i.e. appealing to the electorate's
basest instincts of fear and greed;[2] And, boy, haven't you just seen it in
all its blatant arrogance and mendacity in Trump and Farage!

To get a sure grip on the voters, first invent an enemy as the source of >> >their troubles; then bribe 'em. Works every time.

Strange that you should write that considering the situation in the US
where there are two opposing groups pulling this stunt yet you recognise
only one

It's called 'Manufacturing consent' i.e. appealing to the electorate's
basest instincts of fear and greed;[2] And, boy, haven't you just seen it in
all its blatant arrogance and mendacity in Trump and Farage!

To get a sure grip on the voters, first invent an enemy as the source of >> >their troubles; then bribe 'em. Works every time.

Strange that you should write that considering the situation in the US
where there are two opposing groups pulling this stunt yet you recognise
only one

In fact, in democracies around the world, "binary" opposing party politics as >we once knew them are fast disappearing, leaving behind them the remnants of a >superficial yah-boo debating culture strictly for the slackjawed.

In this instance, the two opposing groups that matter and are pulling this >stunt are the pro-Trumps and the anti-Trumps in the Republican party. So the >recalcitrant Democrats can now simply sit back to idly savour the bizarre >spectacle of a delusional president who, all of three months into his term, has
yet to complete his cabinet, and this while continuing successfully in his >determined efforts to skewer himself at every turn - and U-turn.

And rather than draining the swamp, that same swamp is now staffing, advising >and nurturing every key position in the White House.

It beggars all belief, I agree, but today, and at the very moment his >bureaucracy is poised on the brink of seizing up altogether, this incoherent >blowhard turkey is now confronted by an inglorious 100-day score-card which >trumpets to the rest of the world his abject failure to prosecute not one but >all three planks of his batshit agenda.

Whichever way he now chooses to prevent Washington from shutting down >completely, the vainglorious “I win, you lose” (I quote him verbatim) >huckster can only face humiliation.

Such is Trump’s stunted grasp of a world beyond Mar al Largo and his next >round of golf, that his juvenile sabre-rattlings and what currently passes for >American diplomacy – and even some of his economic policies - are being >exclusively run by two be-medalled hardline hawks from some office in the >Pentagon. One of them is even known as “mad dog.”

Inveterate warmongers both, these men are somehow attempting to conduct the >business of their loonytoons American Chief of the Armed Forces who, when >questioned on the North Korea flareup, didn’t even know where a detachment of
his fleet was or where it was headed. He was even heard to speculatively >whisper “Afghanistan?” as he exited the meeting, oblivious to the >embarrassment and ridicule that follow him everywhere like a cauliflower fart >delivered into spandex tights.

And **still** the clackmouthed comb-over doesn't get it!

Nevertheless, I do believe in giving credit where credit’s due: just as with >Farage, Trump has brought to light and conveniently spotlighted the kind of >vicious spite and primal hatred that lies in the shrivelled heart of his own >kind, the semi-educated, born-and-bred, over-monied sociopath.

Himself the scion of white anglo-saxon immigrants, Trump has gratuitously >harnessed skin type and religious difference to his audience’s latent fears, >selfishness and venality in order to fuel and propel his agenda of American >exceptionalism.

On these two counts of prejudice and exceptionalism alone, you'd be hard >pressed to get a cigarette paper between him and Farage.

Today, China is running surpluses it doesn't know what to do with (actually it >does, and its plans for America are coming along quite nicely). But thanks to >economic illiterates like Reagan and Bush I and II - all three of whom knelt in
cowering obeisance to "Oooops, I got it all wrong" Alan Greenspan - America is >now running a US$20 Trillion deficit.

As if this monstrous millstone were not already enough, in all its >credit-card, fast-food gluttony, America’s 5% of the world’s population >continues to help itself to more than 25% of the world’s finite resources.

It’s all been down to one thing: the obscene profits and bonuses to be made >- with fiat money - from the delusional, gew-gaw fixated voter suckered >wholesale into believing that there's no difference between the perils of >irredeemable debt and the indulgent pleasures of the showy "wealth" it funds >and backs.

But there's yet another thing that makes greedy hard-right Americans really >crap their pants: their mortal terror of playing second fiddle to the >inexorably rising Asian.

OK, 9/11 was the pivotal moment when the brown bogeyman bomber left his >calling-card. But 15 years later, and while Uncle Sam has been working its >bitt off to keep up with the Kardashians while making a rod for his own back in
the Middle-East, China is now holding so much American debt that it has >deficit-trapped Trump by both neck and scrotum.

Indeed, nothing could have been more telling than than the bested vulgarian >recently pictured alongside his inscrutably still and knowingly tacit creditor >from Beijing.

100 days in and we’ve only just begun. But 300 million dumb and blind-eyed >exceptionalists are going to take a whole lot longer yet to wake up to what >they’ve really brought upon themselves.

Because, shouting the odds and insulting your opponents on the campaign trail >is really pretty easy. Actually running a country is a little harder.

But will this immutable fact of political life ever dawn on an ignorant >drive-by megaphone with arms too long to sense what he's grappling with, and >hands and cerebrum too small even to begin to get a grip?

(Last I heard, Greenspan was still seeing out his dotage, joshing on Skype >with Warren Buffet, and sipping on 40-year Islay malts while sucking on >personally monogrammed Gurkha Black Dragons at a mere $1,000 a puff.) Oligarchies are hell are they not? They invariably fail in due course but more slowly than communist states.