I honestly don't know what will be the trending Trump news when we meet, so I will not select the videos until the day before. I still have some left over Trumps videos from two weeks ago, particularly about the visits from the leaders of Japan, Canada and Israel. We still have not talked about the repeal of Obamacare, or the dismantling of federal regulations, or the war on the press, or the end of the separation of church and state, or global trade, or states rights, or tax reform, or infrastructure, public education, or climate change. Did I miss anything?
If you have a Trump topic you would like to cover please post it on this blog.
------------------------------------- Updated 3/2/17 ---------------------------------------
We dedided to talk about Trump's speech before Congress, with the focus on the requested increase on defense spending. Here are the videos that were shown:
If you have a Trump topic you would like to cover please post it on this blog.
------------------------------------- Updated 3/2/17 ---------------------------------------
We dedided to talk about Trump's speech before Congress, with the focus on the requested increase on defense spending. Here are the videos that were shown:
- Trump's address to Congress in 7 minutes
- Chuck Schumer Responds to Trump's address to Congress
- Huckabee on Schumer
- Colbert on Trump's Speech
- Trump promises huge boost in military spending
- Trump Seeks Record Pentagon Budget
- Pentagon Considering Proposing Combat Troops in Syria
- Questions persist about deadly Yemen raid and its results
- UN asks for funds to battle famine in Yemen
- Trump threatens to cut UN funding
Sebastian Gorka. A couple of things about him, including his phone call to Michael Smith - http://www.npr.org/2017/02/24/517086461/trump-adviser-sebastian-gorka-threatens-legal-action-over-tweets
ReplyDeleteI looked up Sebastian Gorka. He provides the intellectual justification for Trump's vilification of Islam. He is not on main stream media much, except on Hannity, but his influence may be be more than is generally recognized.
DeleteBizarre! Are these men all senile? Really, really scary to know that the most grave decisions to be made at the top of the administration are cluttered up with such inconsequential crap! How long do we think this can last before we are confronted by a serious foreign policy issue. A government of madmen set on "deconstruction" of any capacity to respond. Stack this sort of nonsense along side of "His Majesty's" promise yesterday to invest in seemingly endless increases in our military strength---more ships, more planes, more troops, etc., etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteAfter Trump's speech last night, I thinks that increased military spending will be the main focus, although it will be hidden by all the other issues he is raising.
DeleteHe is proposing a 10% increase in military spending but some PXs and military base day care centers are already decreasing their hours. Perhaps the 10% will go to weapons rather than some of it to support the troops.
DeleteIn addition and I"m sure this will be brought up, he is proposing a 30% decrease in State. State and its diplomats exist to prevent war. When they can't do their job, it is then up to the military. So eroding the base of State bodes poorly for the future.
There was an interesting piece in today’s Washington Post (Feb. 26, 2017) by Marc Fisher, entitled The Trump Show, in which he more or less argues that the Trump presidency is a continuation of Donald Trump’s lifelong pursuit of power and celebrity and is thus, more focused on form than substance. He argues that Trump is a showman before all else, always placing himself and his brand at the center of every story and that he is, rather than being President, playing the role of President.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we are seeing the fruition of a process that began when citizens first came to rely on the media – particularly electronic media and, more particularly, television – as the vehicle for political discourse. Social critics have for years commented on the growing role of media in trivializing serious social issues and have cautioned about the conversion of politics to entertainment. Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) said:
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture death is a clear possibility.”
Walter Truett Anderson in Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be (1990) made an equally bleak observation:
“While governance becomes more complex, politics becomes more simple-minded. The public is beguiled with media images, noble lies, theatrical poses, and half-truths disguised as absolute verities. Never have there been such easy answers to such hard questions.”
Today it’s not hard to see evidence of precisely these qualities, suggesting that we have for a long time been conditioned to make way for a leader like Donald Trump. He is indeed the television President, and as David Foster Wallace once observed, the point of television is to keep us wanting more, to keep us engaged. Television does not claim to solve problems or encourage thoughtful debate. It expects nothing of us except that we keep watching. Paraphrasing Foster Wallace in 2010, Wyatt Mason noted that “television’s greatest appeal is that it is engaging without demanding.” And this description certainly fits our 45th President. Fisher concludes his piece with an observation that matches perfectly Wallace’s words: “The Trump Show is, as ever, a spectacle, a cavalcade of provocations. It is designed not to prompt thought or even persuade, but to sell tickets to the next performance.”
So are we just seeing the culmination of a process set in motion long ago? That is, are our institutions captive participants in an inevitable trivialization of social and political reality? Are we nothing more than an audience ordering up simple solutions to very complex problems? And if so, what, if anything can we do about it?
Did Trump's speech before Congress last night change all that? It may not be about him anymore, but of his policies. Are his policies just the policies of the Right Wing? Trump's antics are just a grand distraction, while the Right Wing select which of Trump's policies to enact.
DeleteI heard some good stuff on CNN. A president has policies and manners/protocol. Only twice has Trump shown protocol - once in a late debate and also last night when he had prepared comments. When he is speaking off the cuff he speaks in the vernacular and it turns off many people.
DeleteDid the headlines not focus on Trump's "performance"?
DeleteI didn't watch the self-infatuated one's speech last night because I can't stand the sight of him or the sound of his voice. I believe he reveals his true nature when he's not reading a script from a teleprompter. When he is reading from a script, it's just a question of what right-wing extremist in the background has provided it. The goals of these extremists are made obvious by the characters who have been selected as cabinet officials. These millionaires and billionaires are all itching to make themselves even richer via tax "reform" and/or government contracts. It was somewhat refreshing to see the nominees for Secretary of the Army and Navy withdraw because they bothered to become familiar with the ethics rules and saw that obeying those rules as a government employee would be a money loser for them. But they'll probably find other rich guys with less scruples as replacements. Otherwise, the cabinet includes business types who want to do away with regulation of business or regulation of anything and a woman who is just dying to destroy our public education system and instead promote religious schools as an alternative for reeducation or indoctrination of the young. Maybe they want to ensure that young people vote "right" in the future. And the glorious leader, who carefully avoided military service himself, apparently wants to build up the military (which has way too much of our money spent on it already) so that he can have the option of playing war games. The whole thing is beyond sickening. Is there a single redeeming feature here?
ReplyDelete