COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Minimalist Poetry by the Donald

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Hmmm. The content isn't great, but it works quite well as minimalist poetry.

“We are sending an armada,
very powerful. 
We have submarines,
very powerful, 
far more powerful 
than the aircraft carrier,
that I can tell you. 
And we have the best military people 
on Earth. 
And I will say this.
He is doing the wrong thing. 
He is doing the wrong thing.”



Donald Trump's North Korea 'armada' gaffe 

was dangerous buffoonery | Richard Wolffe



Carl Vinson strike group
‘The only problem is that the Carl Vinson armada wasn’t sailing towards North Korea.’ Photograph: Us Department Of Defense Handout/EPA

Thanks to Donald Trump, the international community now knows that the United States is a force to be reckoned with.

Gone are the days when dictators and allies alike disdained a professorial president who preferred nuclear diplomacy to nuclear war. If only Barack Obama had played more golf at luxury resorts, his successor would not have to bring such golden luster to such a copper world.

Less than 100 days into this presidency, it is blissfully clear what kind of leader Trump is. He has made the awesome transition from a neophyte candidate into a neophyte president; from a man who bluffed and blustered his way in TV debates to a man who bluffs and blusters his way through international crises.

Here is a small-time businessman who knew nothing about foreign affairs, who has grown into a nuclear-armed president who knows nothing about foreign affairs. He used to fire B-list celebrities on TV; now he just fires off tweets and Tomahawks after watching TV.

To put it mildly, it is troubling for any White House – at a time of high tensions with a rogue nuclear state – to act as dumb or duplicitous as Donald Trump. Machiavelli argued that it is better to be feared than loved. It’s also better to look like something other than a fool. 

Because that’s what you look like when you misstate the mission and location of an entire aircraft carrier group: specifically, the USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz class, nuclear-powered beast of the seas, accompanied by a strike force of two destroyers and a cruiser.

How does such confusion begin? In an epic interview with Fox Business Network, President Trump made it clear he was getting tough with North Korea. But he was also cunningly mysterious about what he was doing.

“You never know, do you? You never know … I don’t want to talk about it,” he told his interviewer before, you know, talking about it. 

“We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you. And we have the best military people on Earth. And I will say this. He is doing the wrong thing. He is doing the wrong thing.” 

As an explanation of a nuclear crisis, this is right up there with his February press conference, when he spilled the secrets about his classified briefings on nuclear war with Russia: “Nuclear holocaust would be like no other.” 

The only problem is that the Carl Vinson armada wasn’t sailing towards North Korea. It was sailing away from Pyongyang. A long, long way away: more than 3,500 miles away to the Indian Ocean for a joint exercise with the Australian navy.

In any kind of standoff with a rogue nuclear power, it’s helpful to avoid this kind of buffoonery. Vice-President Mike Pence traveled to the Korean peninsula to warn the North not to test Donald Trump. He declared ominously that “the era of strategic patience is over” in what was surely the most reckless formulation of words since “the axis of evil” left the lips of George W Bush. 

Now we know that the era of strategic impatience needs to wait a little longer for the aircraft carrier to sail 3,500 miles back to the hot zone. Do not test Donald Trump’s resolve or, for that matter, his naval knowledge.

The problem with this kind of chest-thumping is that it spills across the whole team of once professional adults. Defense secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser HR McMaster played their own part in leaving the impression that the aircraft carrier was steaming towards Korea. Serving a clueless boss, their reputations are growing tarnished on a daily basis, like that of the United States itself.

The nuclear standoff with North Korea has already been compared to the Cuban missile crisis. So it’s worth recalling that when JFK wanted to win over France’s General DeGaulle, he sent Dean Acheson to show him the photographic proof that was leading the world to the brink of nuclear war. DeGaulle said he had no need to see the photos because he trusted Acheson, and the United States, to tell the truth.
This kind of credibility is in desperately short supply in the hands of a president who explains his first military intervention in these terms, in his now infamous Fox Business interview: “I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We’re now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do?”

What indeed? Like a wonderful ganache, this is a story that is so delicious it is sometimes hard to recall every crumb of detail. “So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq and I wanted you to know this.’ And he was eating his cake. And he was silent.”

If you were the Chinese president sitting opposite a nuclear-armed president who couldn’t tell Iraq from Syria, you too might remain silent and savor every bite of the last chocolate cake you might encounter on this planet.

Based on his extensive viewing of Fox News, Trump had thought the North Korean crisis would be pretty simple to fix: a bit of pressure on President Xi to cut off North Korea’s economy, and hey presto! But it turns out this whole Asian thing is a bit harder to game out, as he explained to the Wall Street Journal. 



Thermonuclear war possible ‘at any moment’, warns North Korea

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy,” he explained about trade across the North Korean border. “A lot of goods come in. But it’s not what you would think.” 

This is sadly not a once-in-a-blue-moon gaffe. It is a pattern of behavior that is only understandable among teenage students who prefer to play video games rather than tackle their homework.

After all, this is how our president explained the North Korea crisis to another incisive interviewer on the wonderfully named show Fox and Friends: “I hope there’s going to be peace, but they’ve been talking with this gentleman for a long time. You read Clinton’s book and he said, ‘Oh, we made such a great peace deal’ and it was a joke … You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed. They’ve all been outplayed by this gentleman, and we’ll see what happens.” 

Perhaps all North Korean leaders look alike to President Trump. But Clinton’s deal with North Korea was with the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, the father of the current leader Kim Jong-un. 

George W Bush may have lost all credibility by invading a country for non-existent weapons of mass destruction. But at least he knew which country he was invading, and which direction his ships were sailing in. He knew the difference between Saddam Hussein and King Hussein. 

The world is facing a unique challenge as Trump grapples with Kim. In a standoff between two unpredictable and vainglorious nuclear-armed leaders who are obsessed with pop culture and conspiracies, the only sane course of action is clear: focus on your chocolate cake.

24 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I initially missed the part where Trump told the Chinese president that he had just bombed Iraq.

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    2. I love the part where Trump said the Chinese president was silent after Trump told him he just bombed Iraq.

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  2. WHEN IT RAINS IT POURS

    Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has lost custody of his two teenage children following an alleged domestic violence incident, according to court documents.

    A New York appeals court upheld a ruling that denied Mr. O'Reilly sole residential custody and status as sole decision-maker for the 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son he had with his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, the New York Daily News reported. The Fox News host will still have visitation rights with his kids on alternating weekends and some holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  3. DOUBLE BILLING

    Bill O'Reilly can join Bill Clinton on Wikipedia Sexual Misconduct Posting

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_misconduct_allegations

    ReplyDelete
  4. Maybe this is a double head fake, where Trump is demonstrating to Kim that Trump is just as crazy as he is.

    ReplyDelete
  5. SUSAN WHO?

    Trump's jackassery demolished the momentum Mark Levin was making against Susan Rice.

    ReplyDelete
  6. WikiLeaks‏Verified account
    @wikileaks

    US agencies have interfered with 81 elections not including coups. #CIA

    Overview: http://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506625913/database-tracks-history-of-u-s-meddling-in-foreign-elections …

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...and the CIA is livid that the Russians are trying to cut in on their action.

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    2. WHAT DO YOU THINK PANGLOSS?

      "troubles are just the shadows in a beautiful picture."

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    3. I like that.

      And this:

      "Why would it be more surprising to be born twice, than once" ?

      Voltaire

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  7. I couldn't stand to read too much of this screed, it was making me angry. I hope I misread this thing, but I doubt it. Its been a nice run, but so long.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Timmy, we hardly knew ya.

      .

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    2. .

      I wish Tim had been more specific as to which screed had actually made him so angry.

      .

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    3. I was just getting to really like the guy.

      And, now he's gone.

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  8. All in all, it is just another wrinkle in the battle between the forces of light and darkness. Of that we can be assured.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed !

      The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness

      A VINDICATION OF DEMOCRACY AND A CRITIQUE OF ITS TRADITIONAL DEFENSE

      Most proponents of democracy, Niebuhr claimed, were “children of light,” who had optimistic but naïve ideas about how society could be rid of evil and governed by enlightened reason. They needed, he believed, to absorb some of the wisdom and strength of the “children of darkness,” whose ruthless cynicism and corrupt, anti-democratic politics should otherwise be repudiated.

      http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo12091283.html
      REINHOLD NIEBUHR

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  9. The mystery over the vanishing American carrier strike group could have been part of an elaborate plot to deceive Kim Jong-un into believing North Korea was about to be attacked.

    ...

    The embarrassment over the mixed messages in Washington is a painful lesson for Mr Trump - but it may, at least, have convinced Kim not to carry out a sixth nuclear test, as had been expected.

    ReplyDelete
  10. So where are they? Mystery over 730,000 missing ELEPHANTS

    UP to 730,000 elephants are estimated to be missing from protected areas across Africa, a shocking conservation study reveals today.

    By STUART WINTER

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/793946/Missing-elephants-Mystery-missing-animals-Africa-refuge

    Interesting article.

    It may not be quite as bad as it sounds.

    ReplyDelete
  11. .

    Tim

    Tim is gone. We've lost another one, boys. And we are left to speculate on what was the tipping point, what was it that after (we must assume) some time spent silently reading the intense debate, the occasional vitriol, the insults, the jerking of chains, the flowery verbiage that flows here at the EB, what was it that caused him to finally say, "Enough, dammit. Enough!"

    His exit was short and dignified as befitting a man of his character...

    I couldn't stand to read too much of this screed, it was making me angry. I hope I misread this thing, but I doubt it. Its been a nice run, but so long.

    ..but still it leaves us with questions.

    The natural assumption would be that he was angered over the lead post titled Minimalist Poetry by the Donald. But if so, was it the tone of the poetry or its quality? Did he feel it was unfair using the Donald's own words in such a flow of consciousness manner almost as if they were some kind of extended run-over haiku. Was Tim a Trump fan or an art critic or neither? Hard to say as Tim's exit lines were themselves minimalist leaving each of his fellow bloggers here to struggle for his own interpretation of Tim's cryptic prose and hidden message(s).

    Perhaps it wasn't the poetry. Perhaps, there was something in the Guardian article that so angered Tim he was forced to leave while he could still control himself.

    Was it the cynical hyperbole?

    If you were the Chinese president sitting opposite a nuclear-armed president who couldn’t tell Iraq from Syria, you too might remain silent and savor every bite of the last chocolate cake you might encounter on this planet.

    Was it the sarcasm?

    In an epic interview with Fox Business Network, President Trump made it clear he was getting tough with North Korea. But he was also cunningly mysterious about what he was doing.

    “You never know, do you? You never know … I don’t want to talk about it,” he told his interviewer before, you know, talking about it.
     

    Or was it some passing comment that for some reason just pissed him right off?

    “After listening for 10 minutes, I realized that it’s not so easy,” he explained about trade across the North Korean border...

    This is sadly not a once-in-a-blue-moon gaffe. It is a pattern of behavior that is only understandable among teenage students who prefer to play video games rather than tackle their homework.


    Heck, maybe it wasn't the poetry or the articles but something simpler. Maybe, it was Deuce's analysis of the article or his light joking manner. Or, maybe it was Bob's feckless derfiness. Who knows?

    Even Tim's last sentence is a puzzle.

    Its been a nice run, but so long.

    Does it mean 'it's been a nice run but goodbye?' Or does it mean "it's been a nice run but a little too long." In Tim's absence, I can see many debates here over the placement of that comma, was it intentional, a typo, poor grammar, some hidden message, a joke on those he left behind, what did it mean for god's sake?

    Hopefully, someday when he calms down Tim will return and explain what it all means.

    .

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    Replies
    1. :)

      I think that if Tim had a My Pillow for his head and a Miracle Bamboo Cushion for his ass, as I do when blogging, he'd still be here.

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    2. Not to mention a Red Rubber Urinary Catheter so as to avoid those maddening bathrooms breaks...

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    3. Assuming your home, apartment or tepee has more than one bathroom....

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