Friday, December 16, 2016

U.S. In 2016 Points Civilization In The Wrong Direction ... by gimleteye


The next president of the United States has embraced the values of an oligarch and a killer: Vladmir Putin. Russia's support for the murderous regime in Syria should have been a disqualifying fact for Republican voters. Instead, Republicans are now comfortable with a Russian dictator who brutally suppresses dissent, including murder of journalists. Trump, himself, has turned into a critic of free speech: a supporter of 1st Amendment violations before even taking office.

Then there is climate change. Read, this by Alex Steffan: "Trump, Putin and Pipelines to Nowhere". Steffan clearly states why there are no climate change deniers, only a few oligarchs running petro-states. Now including Trump and his Cabinet.

Paul Krugman concludes in the NY Times this morning:
Now what? If we’re going to have any hope of redemption, people will have to stop letting themselves be used the way they were in 2016. And the first step is to admit the awful reality of what just happened.

That means not trying to change the subject to campaign strategy, which is a legitimate topic but has no bearing on the question of electoral subversion. It means not making excuses for news coverage that empowered that subversion.

And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy beyond the bare legal requirements. It might be more comfortable to pretend that things are O.K., that American democracy isn’t on the edge. But that would be taking useful idiocy to the next level.
I've taken to Twitter @gimleteyemiami to quickly communicate some of the best reads I'm finding. Follow me there. Also, start using this hashtag: #terraincognito That is the term used by cartographers in the age of discovery, before the planet was mapped. It means, in Latin, unknown land. 

It is an accurate description of where the United States is today: we are beyond the map of known boundaries with an American president aligned with a brutal petrostate led by a former top KGB agent who, I imagine, is having the best Christmas of his whole life.

In Moscow they are toasting, "Make Америки Great Again". 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steffan has it right, now think, have our top leaders ever spoken in such clear terms???
The implication of following trough on this "revelation" are profound, and dare I say, would be perceived by most Merkuns as "unamerican".

Our present economic and political system is not geared to deal with this insight, period.
Sadly, it wont happen here.

Anonymous said...

So I guess all of those Miami Cubans who voted for Trump are finally reunited with their former masters. So much for patriotic ideals and flag waving on SE 8 Street. The Ruskis rule the day.

Anonymous said...

Obama had eight years to solve problems, he chose to spin failures with a compliant media. Hillary was not a change candidate.

Anonymous said...

They may have voted themselves out of America. Some republicans are talking about sending people back home three generations deep. Citizens or not!