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Post by mrsonde on Mar 19, 2016 19:50:14 GMT 1
Nope, not that I recall. I can imagine them pretty much word for word though, I bet. That's how pre-programmed and predictable you are. Such as? Not those you've parsed via your own fervid imagination, such as all Mexicans are rapists, please. I doubt it very much. And it's not the poor. The poor are sad, but they'll always be with us. It's the heart of America - the Western world - this is about. The people who have always paid your wages and now pay for your exorbitant pension. The people who earn a living, don't extort it. The middle class - in America that means something somewhat different than it does in Europe: the upper working class, as well as salaried professionals, we'd call them here (because America has always understood where its wealth comes from.). The people whose labour enables your ludicrously pampered lifestyle, and whom your sort has always despised. Enjoy that little fantasy as long as it still lasts, and you can suck whatever juice is still remaining. A year or two more is my guess. Your time is up. You've ridden on the back of the workers long enough, and Reality is here to bite. It's been heavily edited for its appearance on the website, so I don't entirely blame you for missing its point. Nothing "excellent" about that sort of shit at all - absurd class-warrior nonsense. Little wonder its glitter has so fascinated you. You simply don't get it. It's so out of your intellectual compass that I doubt you can get it. Oh yes? How? Please tell us your analysis of what's troubling Italy. It's nothing to do with Berlusconi, that much I know, from long experience of working in Italy over the past four decades. I'll give you my own postmortem if you;re interested, but first dig your own hole. In the meantime, there's no comparison between Berlusconi and Trump, none at all. If that's the level of sophistication of your historical awareness, you may as well compare Obama with Mugabe. A much, much more accurate comparison would be between Trump and Asquith. That's how far you have to go back to see anything like him in Europe. In the States, I'd say the closest comparison is FDR. I know Sanders normally gets credited with that analogy - but as far as I can tell there's a cigarette paper between them.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 19, 2016 20:20:00 GMT 1
I mean this is a board where you can say what you want and be whatever you like. It's a forum of free-speech, you see?
You feel insulted? Who's insulted you ffs? All I'm saying is - this is a board where your sort of stiff-collared proprietry doesn't really belong. There are people like Jean and Fascinating about, primarily, working out their petty female resentments. Other than that obvious fact, I can't really recommend where you could go for the sort of gentleman's club style of etiquette the infraction of which so upsets you. Not on the internet, anyway. You seem happy enough with the Madrigal, curiously - what can I say, who can fathom?
No one's insulted you, jj. You're too touchy, is my point. And far too en haut en bas for my liking, if you're really pressing for a bit of personal criticism.
Says you. You prefer the stuffed dummies of the EU bureaucracy, perhaps. I don't mind a bit of loud-mouthery. If it wasn;t appealing to something real it wouldn't work.
You'd be happy seeing Iran carpet-bombed, I take it, which is the alternative on offer?
I vividly recall so many people of your class saying exactly the same thing about Reagan, I really do.
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Post by jean on Mar 19, 2016 22:53:58 GMT 1
Nope, not that I recall. I can imagine them pretty much word for word though, I bet. You're almost certainly wrong. I wonder if we couldn't just stick to what I've actually said, rather than some fantasies of yours? Thanks. Then why on earth did you ruin the point you were hoping to make by recommending a thoughtful and well-balanced article that turns out to have been heavily edited so that its point was lost? Actually I think I understood it rather well, but I'd be quite interested to see the unedited text, all the same. There is no comparison at all, yet, between Trump and either Asquith or FDR - simply because they held power, and have left a record of achievement on which they can be judged. Trump has, as yet, nothing of the sort. I make the comparison between Trump and Berlusconi because a great part of Berlusconi's appeal was that, just like Trump now, he was seen as a political outsider, and a very rich man who did not need to be bought by anyone and who could work some sort of Midas touch on the economy. If you really had you'd know that. (But I think that's another of your fantasies.)
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Post by jean on Mar 19, 2016 23:28:50 GMT 1
Here's someone who agrees with me about Trump and Berlusconi. It's obvious, really; I'm not quite sure why Nick wants to deny tha parallels - of which there are more even than I'd realised. Like Berlusconi, Trump is running on his claim of being a rich, successful businessman, despite the fact that he was the owner of at least four bankrupt companies — just as Berlusconi promised Italians to make them as rich as he was, while in reality his companies were deeply in debt at the time he first ran, as extensively documented in Marco Travaglio’s book “Clean Hands.” Both men exploited voters’ rage at a discredited, gridlocked political establishment...
Like Berlusconi in Italy, Trump has built a political campaign employing unvarnished language and jaundiced humor, which has succeeded in the United States, a country that — embarrassingly — ranks second among wealthy industrialized nations, only behind Italy, in terms of being uninformed on key issues of the world...
...Like Trump, Berlusconi relied on the fact that Italy’s liberal mainstream would treat him as a joke, using his ugly gaffes as an effective, disruptive campaign strategy to distract both from his lack of well-thought-out policy ideas, as well as his dangerous ignorance on foreign policy. That seems to be Trump’s plan, too. They both turned the jokes on the political elite by stirring up the electorate’s disdain for their critics. Challenged about his complicated personal life, the twice-divorced Berlusconi contemptuously and proudly stated, “it’s better to be fond of beautiful girls than to be gay.” Meanwhile, Trump, who has been twice divorced and thrice married, opposes gay marriage on the grounds that it’s not traditional.
Berlusconi sold an impossible dream, convincing Italian voters that all that stood between them and the sort of wealth and grandeur he enjoyed was a hapless, self-serving political class. He promised to amend the constitution, deregulate markets and shrink government, thus packaging a billionaire’s dream agenda as if it offered salvation to “the average Giuseppe.” Trump has been vague about his economic policies, other than to bluster that his business experience means voters should trust him...
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 6:27:45 GMT 1
Here's someone who agrees with me about Trump and Berlusconi. It's obvious, really; I'm not quite sure why Nick wants to deny tha parallels - of which there are more even than I'd realised. The only thing they have in common is they're rich. Their wealth wasn't earned in the same way - no one has ever suggested Trump is or ever was a Mafia puppet. They haven't done the same things with their wealth either. Berlusconi is an Italian Robert Maxwell crossed with Sam Giancana - the nearest thing in America was Joe Kennedy or the Bushes (who really were utter crooks, as well as being obscenely - and illegally - rich.) Having companies go bankrupt in the US does not mean the same thing as it does here - or used to mean here. A Washington Post reporter knows that full well. The last authoritative report on Trump's wealth I read was $20 billion plus - much less than he claims, and who knows? More or even less, strikes me as reasonably successful. "Both men exploited voters’ rage at a discredited, gridlocked political establishment..." Like Obama, then. Or Blair. Or Sanders. Or Corbyn. "Like Berlusconi in Italy, Trump has built a political campaign employing unvarnished language and jaundiced humor, which has succeeded in the United States, a country that — embarrassingly — ranks second among wealthy industrialized nations, only behind Italy, in terms of being uninformed on key issues of the world..." What bollocks! A country? And what "key issues" are these? ."..Like Trump, Berlusconi relied on the fact that Italy’s liberal mainstream would treat him as a joke, using his ugly gaffes as an effective, disruptive campaign strategy to distract both from his lack of well-thought-out policy ideas, as well as his dangerous ignorance on foreign policy." What utter silliness. It doesn't surprise me as a piece of transparent propagandistic nonsense, or that you should swallow it so unreflectively. That's exactly what I've just pointed out. The liberal mainstream does treat him as a joke, and now a dangerous threat - but no "reliance" on this totally predictable propaganda can be imputed, or credited for his success! What sort of sense does that make? Rather, the truth is the liberal mainstream are reacting in such a hostile mud-slinging manner because they are threatened - not only in their pockets, because Trump has stated he will undo the corporate corruption that now distorts the media in America through the deregulation that Obama was blatantly bribed into passing, but because he challenges their whole world-view and imbibed system of values: the liberal-left consensus of the Beltway and post-war privileged elite. And it's the "dangerous ignorance" of people like you that they're relying on to sell this sort of obvious propaganda. "That seems to be Trump’s plan, too. They both turned the jokes on the political elite by stirring up the electorate’s disdain for their critics." It's the Washington and New York intellectuals' contempt for middle-America - the working and middle classes - that's so obvious here. The electorate's reflected and thoroughly deserved disdain for that liberal elite needs no "stirring up" - no further energy is required and could hardly be noticed. "Meanwhile, Trump, who has been twice divorced and thrice married, opposes gay marriage on the grounds that it’s not traditional." Aaaahh...enough said! "Berlusconi sold an impossible dream, convincing Italian voters that all that stood between them and the sort of wealth and grandeur he enjoyed was a hapless, self-serving political class." This reporter is a dangerously ignorant buffoon. Either that or she's simply lying. Evidently she holds as deep a contempt for the Italian electorate as she does the American. "He promised to amend the constitution, deregulate markets and shrink government, thus packaging a billionaire’s dream agenda as if it offered salvation to “the average Giuseppe.” Trump has been vague about his economic policies, other than to bluster that his business experience means voters should trust him..." As I said, utter bollocks - not a word about what Trump has been saying, clearly and emphatically, as the article I posted analysed, in 95% of all his speeches. The only thing the "liberal mainstream" wants to cover are twisted quotes about immigrants and muslims and the usual pre-packaged critiques of his personal and business failings. And, as I said, people like you just love to swallow it whole, without a thought, without even a glimmer of awareness of how easily you've been manipulated.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 6:56:16 GMT 1
Well, as it turned out I wasn't wrong at all, was I? I was comprehensively spot-on. Unless you're now saying you disagree with the article you've only just approvingly posted? Well, what have you said? I've told you, I haven't seen you say anything, other than to deliberately misconstrue his grammar so you could scorn a point that he didn't make. Its point wasn't lost - just on you. The original article stressed that point more fully and fairly, that's all. You've just seized on the totally unfounded slurs that you approved of, and ignored the whole essence of his critique. That critique was an attack on the "liberal mainstream media" that you've just slavishly quoted, for doing precisely the sort of disgraceful disservice you haven't even realised you've repeated! So it was a bit of Socratic irony, your posting that article, was it? Yes, there is, very close comparisons, if you bothered to actually listen to what they say. For Sanders a closer comparison would be between Attlee and FDR, that's the only difference. Of course I'm not talking about achievements, I'm referring to politico-economic viewpoints. Are you being so dense deliberately? You have to go back decades to when that was true - and it wasn't even all that true then. Nothing like the extent to which it applies to Trump and Sanders - or as it did to Reagan (or Thatcher, or Blair.) Italy's political system has always been fluid and open to strange irruptions - it's actually always been utterly chaotic, in fact, compared to anything in the States or most of the rest of Europe. To base a critique on the dubious claim they are both "outsiders" and rich is so utterly juvenile it's not even worth a rebuttal. I was living in Italy - Milan, Padua, and Venice - when Berlusconi burst onto the political scene. He wasn't a "very rich man" - he was actually deep in debt and his media empire in well-known serious trouble - and made no and could make no such claims. Everyone in Italy knew who he was, and where what money he had came from: everyone was fully aware of who was bailing him out and bankrolling him too. Quite contrary to that stupid report you've just posted, in no way can Italian voters be justly called ill-informed. Compared to the average British voter, "Giuseppe" is Andrew Neil before they've had their morning espresso. I do know that. I saw exactly what Berlusconi's appeal was when he started out. Nothing to do with your fabricated "Midas touch" claim. A far more accurate comparison is between Berlusconi and Obama. What is? I can tell you exactly when and where I've worked in Italy, and prove it if required.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 8:47:14 GMT 1
I've been trying to catch any proper analysis or critique of this so-called EU-Turkey migration deal on the BBC, C4, or even Sky. Has anyone seen anything that could remotely be called comprehensive or penetrating or even the slightest bit critical? It's apparently already in full operation this morning. The European Parliament hasn't even voted on it yet! No MEP was even consulted - no national leader, not even a single commissioner let alone the President. Merkel did the whole thing off her own bat, just as she did with her initial insane open-door invitation, and has apparently got exactly what she arranged simply nodded through in the usual closed in camera meeting with the usual few unrecognisable suits. The Germans really do believe they rule Europe now - and it seems that they're right.
This is the issue the Leave campaign should be getting across, not the endlessly tiresome squabbles about whether it will help or hurt our bloody trade prospects. It's an undemocratic, unaccountable, unresponsive, totally contemptuous rule by a moneyed elite of bankers, bureaucrats, and bloody burgermeisters. At the moment we're out of Schengen and the Euro zones, and so relatively protected from this and other once vital national interests, but how long will that last? Why should it last - it's at the whim of any future leader or chancellor who manages to get in. Even a future Tory leaderhsip can't be relied on to keep those threads of sovereignty intact - Heath or Heseltine or Clarke or Major wouldn't have done, and who's got a clue what's in May's head? When the next great financial crisis comes - most insider commentators seem confident that will probably be this year, or next if we're very lucky - what desperate panicky decisions will be taken, as Brown unilaterally decided - no vote, no debate, no election - to overthrow decades of economic wisdom to simply print money?
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 20, 2016 10:41:27 GMT 1
So nothing has changed, then. German rule over the Mediterranean states, cheap labor from the East, American indifference....just like 1942 except that French agriculture is now subsidised by British money, we don't have a navy capable of defending a fishing fleet (because we don't have a fishing fleet), the Army is tied up overseas and a Conservative government has unilaterally scrapped most of the Air Force because we can't afford both defence and banking. Time to join the Norwegian Resistance, I think.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 14:53:15 GMT 1
It could indeed be the explanation for the bizarre fact that the Norwegians and Swiss seem to be the only populations left in Europe who value their sovereignty and national identity. Followed to some extent by the Danes and Dutch, if we're talking of "the people" I suppose. Even referring to such matters here would immediately, at least until very recently, get you a "racist" label stamped on your forehead (as it does in France.)
Anyone see IDS on Marr this morning? Devastating for Cameron and Osborne, I thought. If only he could have summoned up a fraction of that sort of passion, principle, and patent integrity when he was leader, things might have been very different. (Summoned? Doesn't look right. Summonned - hmmm, no. One of those odd ones.)
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 15:03:00 GMT 1
Contrast that self-evident persuasiveness of an honest, convinced and genuinely caring man with the transparently deceptive and self-interested O-level standard of argumentation peddled by Major in the Telegraph today. What a pathetic non-entity that man is. I lost fifty quid on that blighter - or Heseltine rather, take your pick. (Both treacherous money-obsessed clercs, if you ask me.) I bet the Queen despised him. How he got Maastricht through without a challenge of Treachery and a trial in the Lords is a real mystery.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 20, 2016 15:55:59 GMT 1
Sorry, sorry, I forgot the Irish, bless 'em. They had a nice lesson in what democracy means in the EU, didn't they, the naughty little unruly scamps.
In the power of money and indebtedness to the German banks, at any rate. And the treachery of their supposed leaders.
Talking of which, at least they've managed to get at least some of their bankers in court and even, miracles, thrown into prison. Why was it only Ireland and Iceland who had the integrity and the respect for the Law to do this??! Were Brown and Obama really so...what's the word? It's not "corruptible", I think, though the effect amounts to the intention. "Money-obsessed", again, like Hillary? Maybe it's just "frit". Anyway - congratulations, Ireland. Begorrah, it comes to a pretty pass when the most honest and law-abiding politicians in the Western world are only to be found in the Dail, so it does.
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Post by jean on Mar 21, 2016 10:49:46 GMT 1
It is quite strange, you must agree, to post a link to an article with a recommendation as strong as this: I suggest you both read this. For The Guardian an unusually thoughtful and well-balanced article. Consider how your evidently knee-jerk views have been shaped by the media you've swallowed, would, could, you? Consider that just possibly Trump is resonating with something real beyond your frankly paranoical "racism" fantasies. Try to understand that nobody else is addressing these concerns... www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-supportand then, when I obediently read it and quote it back to you, to dismiss it wholesale thus: Nothing "excellent" about that sort of shit at all - absurd class-warrior nonsense. Little wonder its glitter has so fascinated you. However heavily you now claim the version you posted has been edited, such a complete about-face takes some explaining. For the record, I have always understood that Trump is resonating with something real. But as I have also said (and I've pointed out to you where I've said it), Trump has no coherent programme for dealing with these concerns. As for the frankly paranoical "racism" fantasies you imagine me to harbour as far as Trump and his supporters are concerned, please find and quote them, or stop inventing them. And here's another fairly startling invention of yours I'd be interested to see some explanation of:
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Post by jean on Mar 21, 2016 11:27:54 GMT 1
To base a critique on the dubious claim [that Trump and Berlusconi] are both "outsiders" and rich is so utterly juvenile it's not even worth a rebuttal. On the contrary, it's glaringly obvious to anyone who knows Italy. Extraordinarily, in all the years I've known you, you've never mentioned those four decades you spent there at all! And we would have had so much to discuss! I of course really was living there in the early 1990s, not a million miles from where you claim to have been - I was living in the province of Vicenza, next door to Padova - when Berlusconi 'burst onto the political scene'. Here's Beppe Severgnini, an astute commentator on the Itaian political scene, someone you'll certainly have come across if you really were there: www.nytimes.com/2015/09/19/opinion/beppe-severgnini-what-italy-can-teach-america-about-donald-trump.html...Berlusconi...wasn't a "very rich man" - he was actually deep in debt and his media empire in well-known serious trouble - and made no and could make no such claims. Everyone in Italy knew who he was, and where what money he had came from: everyone was fully aware of who was bailing him out and bankrolling him too... Everyone didn't know, not at the time. With hindsight, of course, anyone can see it - but at the time, he very cleverly managed to latch on to the mani pulite movement. He was he outsider, who'd never been tainted with the corruption associated with politics as usual. Not quite, though it is true that Italians in general aren't as ill-informed about foreign affairs as Americans are, which was the claim the article made. An extraordinary claim. I won't hold my breath for any elucidation. Go on, then. (This had better be good.)
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Post by alancalverd on Mar 21, 2016 18:21:22 GMT 1
Begorrah, it comes to a pretty pass when the most honest and law-abiding politicians in the Western world are only to be found in the Dail, so it does. Perhaps you can put names to a famous historic exchange in that noble House Hon Member: "Sir, the member opposite has the moral integrity of a sewer rat." Speaker: "You must withdraw that unparliamentary assertion." Hon Member : "I so withdraw, Sir, and I unreservedly apologise to any sewer rats who were offended by the comparison." Now that's what I call a proper, bare-knuckle debate.
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Post by mrsonde on Mar 21, 2016 18:27:28 GMT 1
Begorrah, it comes to a pretty pass when the most honest and law-abiding politicians in the Western world are only to be found in the Dail, so it does. Perhaps you can put names to a famous historic exchange in that noble House Hon Member: "Sir, the member opposite has the moral integrity of a sewer rat." Speaker: "You must withdraw that unparliamentary assertion." Hon Member : "I so withdraw, Sir, and I unreservedly apologise to any sewer rats who were offended by the comparison." Now that's what I call a proper, bare-knuckle debate. I don't know, before my time perhaps - it's passed me by anyway. I shall research it up, and get back to you. Thanks. First guess is it might be Lord Russell - Bertie's somewhat wayward son.
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