Not a single thread on the US election?

[Ttaskmaster]

There is pissibly one race issue that played

Sooooo many pissible jokes from just one typo, heh heh!!!

So how come Bernie Sanders, who seemed to be offering so much, fell out of the running?
Do people not want education and healthcare?

[jimbouk]

So how come Bernie Sanders, who seemed to be offering so much, fell out of the running?
Do people not want education and healthcare?

Minimal media coverage. It was all about Clinton vs Trump long before it was just down to the two of them.

[MaddAussie]

So how come Bernie Sanders, who seemed to be offering so much, fell out of the running?
Do people not want education and healthcare?

Also the US has been brainwashed that Social Health Care = communism ...

[The Hand]

This cartoon made me chuckle from the Spectator:

[directhex]

This cartoon made me chuckle from the Spectator:

The "Clinton would mean more war" line was very US-centric.

Under Trump, expect Eastern Europe to be annexed by Russia without intervention within a year or two.

[wazzickle]

The "Clinton would mean more war" line was very US-centric.

Under Trump, expect Eastern Europe to be annexed by Russia without intervention within a year or two.

My entirely unqualified estimation was more in the order of 10-20 years for war between europe and russia.

[directhex]

My entirely unqualified estimation was more in the order of 10-20 years for war between europe and russia.

The opportunity is during Cheeto Benito's presidency, when Europe is tearing itself apart under a rising tide of nationalism & Putin allies are winning elections (Trump, LePen, etc)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Don't worry good old Nigel the attention seeker barges in to help as usual.

Trump:

US President-elect Donald Trump has said it was a "great honour" to meet President Barack Obama for transition talks at the White House.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37932231

Farage:

Nigel Farage has described Barack Obama as a “creature” and joked about warning Donald Trump not to "touch" Theresa May.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...some-creature/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The "Clinton would mean more war" line was very US-centric.

Under Trump, expect Eastern Europe to be annexed by Russia without intervention within a year or two.

TBF,even some US officials even think the US kind of caused this turn of events:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...caused-by-west

The current level of hostility in US-Russian relations was caused in part by Washington’s contemptuous treatment of Moscow’s security concerns in the aftermath of the cold war, a former US defence secretary has said.
Any analysis of Russia has to consider the effect of Nato expansion
Letters: Those of us present who lived in Russia in the 1990s saw a picture of the past rather than the future
Read more

William Perry, who was defence secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration from 1994 to 1997, emphasised that in the past five years it has been Vladimir Putin’s military interventions in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere that have driven the downward spiral in east-west relations.

But Perry added that during his term in office, cooperation between the two countries’ militaries had improved rapidly just a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union and that these gains were initially squandered more as a result of US than Russian actions.

“In the last few years, most of the blame can be pointed at the actions that Putin has taken. But in the early years I have to say that the United States deserves much of the blame,” Perry said, speaking at a Guardian Live event in London.
Former US defence secretary, William Perry, talking at a Guardian Live event on Tuesday evening

“Our first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when Nato started to expand, bringing in eastern European nations, some of them bordering Russia. At that time we were working closely with Russia and they were beginning to get used to the idea that Nato could be a friend rather than an enemy ... but they were very uncomfortable about having Nato right up on their border and they made a strong appeal for us not to go ahead with that.”

In his memoir, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, Perry writes that he argued for a slower expansion of Nato so as not to alienate Russia during the initial period of post-Soviet courtship and cooperation. Richard Holbrooke, the US diplomat, led the opposing argument at the time, and was ultimately supported by the vice-president, Al Gore, who argued “we could manage the problems this would create with Russia”.

Perry said the decision reflected a contemptuous attitude among US officials towards the troubled former superpower.
Live Donald Trump at the White House: Obama reports 'excellent conversation' – live
Follow live updates as Barack Obama hosts President-elect Donald Trump at the Oval Office and first lady Michelle Obama welcomes Melania Trump
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“It wasn’t that we listened to their argument and said he don’t agree with that argument,” he said. “Basically the people I was arguing with when I tried to put the Russian point ... the response that I got was really: ‘Who cares what they think? They’re a third-rate power.’ And of course that point of view got across to the Russians as well. That was when we started sliding down that path.”

Perry considered resigning over the issue “but I concluded that my resignation would be misinterpreted as opposition to Nato membership that I greatly favoured – just not right away”.

He sees the second major misstep by Washington DC as the Bush administration’s decision to deploy a ballistic missile defence system in eastern Europe in the face of determined opposition from Moscow. Perry said: “We rationalised [the system] as being to defend against an Iranian nuclear missile – they don’t have any but that’s another issue. But the Russians said ‘Wait a bit, this weakens our deterrence.’ The issue again wasn’t discussed on the basis of its merits – it was just ‘who cares about what Russia thinks.’ We dismissed it again.”

The Obama administration has since modified the missile defence system in eastern Europe, replacing long-range with medium-range interceptor missiles but that has not mollified Russian objections.
The west’s assurances to Soviet ministers on eastward expansion of Nato
Letters: The Russians believe that they were misled: imagine our reaction if the position were reversed
Read more

Perry said he was opposed to such systems on technical grounds. “I think they’re a waste of money. I don’t think they work,” he said. “In fact, when I talked to the Russians I tried to convince them not to worry, they don’t work anyway but they didn’t buy that.”

The third factor that Perry pointed to in the poisoning of US-Russian relations was Washington DC’s support for pro-democracy demonstrators in the “colour revolutions” in former Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine. Perry agreed with the ethical reasons for backing such revolutions but noted their severely damaging effect on east-west ties.

“After he came to office, Putin came to believe that the United States had an active and robust programme to overthrow his regime,” the former defence secretary said.

“And from that point on a switch went on in Putin’s mind that said: I’m no longer going to work with the west ... I don’t know the facts behind Putin’s belief that we actually had a programme to foment revolution in Russia but what counts is he believed it.”

Perry described the current tensions between Russia and Nato as having “the potential of becoming very dangerous,” and argued for a radical reduction in nuclear arsenals and in particular the removal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Over 1,000 ICBMs in the US and Russia remain on hair-trigger alert, on a policy of “launch-on-warning”, meaning US and Russian presidents would have less than half an hour to decide whether to fire them in the event of radar and satellite data showing an incoming missile attack from the other side.

[Smudger]

We're all doomed!

Interesting piece in HuffPost:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11179774

[hb904460]

We're all doomed!

Interesting piece in HuffPost:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/11179774

That piece was reading quite well until his "possible scenario" idea.
Especially the, "A divided Europe, with the leaders of France, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and others now pro-Russia" line. He obviously has no notion of the hatred for Russia from some of those countries.

[Smudger]

The west had a hatred for Fascism until quite recently...

[ik9000]

Fascism thrives were discontent breeds. Discontentment blinkers a person. Just like a hungry man makes impulse buys, so a discontented voter it more easily swayed to make unwise choices.

Cameron lost Brexit because he was too naive to realise the populace outside London wasn't just unhappy, but felt marginalised and unable to have a voice representing them. So they protest voted. In many cases that protest vote falls not in a referednum but at election time into the lap of a far-right or radical left who promises to fix their ills - whether or not those ills, and their "fixes" are sound and reasonable to begin with. It's only afterwards when the despot/tyrant/loon is nicely ensconced in power that people will realise the full implication of that, often realising too late that it might not have been such a wise idea after all.

[Corky34]

Fascism thrives were discontent breeds. Discontentment blinkers a person. Just like a hungry man makes impulse buys, so a discontented voter it more easily swayed to make unwise choices.

Sorry that's rubbish, fascism thrives when people allow it, it's a result of political outsiders stoking xenophobia in a nation where the poor feel marginalised, and blaming complex problems on scapegoated minorities, it's what happened with Brexit and Trump, both had politicians blaming complex problems on "them".

So it starts with things a lot of people find attractive: national pride, restoration of glory, fighting the establishment. Then it pushes this further and further to the extreme. The nationalism become more extreme. Not only are we the best people, but all others are inferior. They only appear better because they cheat, they lie, they steal. The establishment is corrupt, the system is rigged, it is undeserving of support, it is illegitimate. The opponents are crooks, they should be put in jail. The media is suppressing the facts, censoring the truth, spreading lies, their dishonest must be silenced. Democracy only leads to indecisive and ineffective politicians, it only elects liars too corrupt to serve the people. If only we had a strong and decisive ruler, then we could solve the country’s problems. Drastic problems require drastic solutions.

Sounds familiar?

Fascism has a major selling point in that it tells people that they are not to blame. Our country is suffering not because of anything we did, no, we don’t need to blame ourselves or feel guilty. The fault lies with others (the targets vary depending on country but it’s usually a different ethnic/religious group). They cheated, they undermined us, they sabotaged us, they are holding us back. If only we could lessen their stranglehold on us, we could prosper and thrive. We’re not attacking them, we’re just protecting ourselves. We’re the victims, but we won’t be pushed around anymore, now we’re going to stand up for ourselves.

Sounds very familiar.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sorry that's rubbish, fascism thrives when people allow it, it's a result of political outsiders stoking xenophobia in a nation where the poor feel marginalised, and blaming complex problems on scapegoated minorities, it's what happened with Brexit and Trump, both had politicians blaming complex problems on "them".

Its even more ironic when both are descendents of immigrants and both tend to have married people who are immigrants.

[ik9000]

Sorry that's rubbish, fascism thrives when people allow it.

That doesn't make my comment rubbish. The National Socialist movement would not have had traction without the discontentment of the German populace who felt impoverished and humiliated en-masse through the 20s and early 30s, via the various post WWI treaties, reparations, depressions, hyper inflation and economic collapse that ensued. Take away that petri dish and it is not likely Hitler would have had the platform from which to build his power base. Content people by and large do not go for the radical option. It is the discontentment that brings in the desire for radical change.