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Donald Trump is the embodiment of a 1945 Georges Clemenceau quotation: “America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
If M. Clemenceau hasn’t been right for the past 71 years, let’s see if the American will vote for their degeneration and make him right on Tuesday.
The political entrance of Donald Trump has made an Abe Lincoln quote frightfully imminent: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we have destroyed ourselves.”
Let’s see if the American people, on Tuesday, would vote for seppuku, albeit a slow one. Or in the words of C. ben-David, if they would drink the Kool Aid.
Patrick Ferrari
The opinions presented in this content belong to the author and may not necessarily reflect the perspectives or editorial stance of iWitness News. Opinion pieces can be submitted to [email protected].
I see that the “new” cache of emails that, according to & de Trump, must have included a serious indictment of Hillary or the director of the FBI would not have anounced that he was reopening the investigation, now turns out to be mostly duplicates of those that the FBI already had. And the investigation is once more closed. The person who needs to be investigated now should be the director – and de Trump!!!
Hear, hear.
“de Trump”? I like.
Bloomberg has Clinton ahead by 3 points in the latest poll released this morning. But pollsters have been very wrong recently so US voters may do their version of Brexit (where they lied to the pollsters because they didn’t want to appear xenophobic just like many secret Trump supporters would lie for related reasons).
Also, sometimes a quick suicide is better than a slow and painful death as the US declines as a super-power to become a second rate country with a much lower level of living.
Mr. Ferrari I sincerely hope that it will soon be very clear that our Kool Aid Stand here in the US will, once again, be out of business and bankrupt. And I am far from alone in this hope! This has been an extraordinarily ugly period of months…
It is humiliating and shameful that we have allowed our country to be dragged into a costly and repugnant cesspool of lies, racism, hatred, distrust, and scorn for those we label “others” both our fellow citizens and those of other nations. Many of us have unthinkingly accepted falsehoods and fantasies as “truth,” and too many of us have been silent for too long and allowed that to happen.
I hope that the next few days will result in our being to show ourselves, and the watching world, that we are not a nation of fools, and affirm, once again, that Mr. Clemenceau was incorrect. I trust that you, and all Vincentians, wish us well!
I do. My wife, after all, is an American.
I do not know how the media has been able to get people in the USA and SVG to drink the koolaid. Obama has been a terrible president and Hillary is probably the most corrupt human on earth. Trump is not perfect but I would rather risk a Trump presidency than Hillary…who has spent her life destroying everything she touches.
You know, Lostpet just parrots the things de Trump says. What makes Hilary Clinton “the most corrupt human on earth”? And she has spent her life “destroying everything she touches”? Oh PLEASE!!!!!
Here’s a more reasoned commentary on Americans’ dislike of Hilary from The Economist in the Oct 22 issue. The Economist is hardly a left leaning publication (it’s conservative, if anything). It is certainly not a Breitbart type paper; it is a publication that considers facts rather than rehashing prejudices:
http://www.economist.com/node/21709053
What makes Hillary so corrupt. Look up “The Clinton Dead bodies list, (some have that list to over 200) Just the past weeks, Seth Rich was murdered, John Ash was murdered, enough dead bodies,…Let’s see…Cattlegate, Chinagate, Whitewater, emailgate, not to mention that Hillary was FIRED from the legal team investigating Nixon in Watergate. The Democrat in charge said she was “corrupt”. I can go on, and on and on but I think I made my point. NEVER start a discussion with me trying to say Hillary is not corrupt…YOU WILL LOSE!
Lostpet may I suggest that you fact check the information you are using here? There are several sites which will tell you which “news” circulating on social media and the internet are untrue. Indeed, I just saw that Mark Zuckerberg has agrees to examine the phenomenon of false news stories on Facebook.
Take, for example, your statement “……not to mention that Hilary was FIRED from the legal team investigating Watergate” Well I was around at the time of the Watergate break-in, and was very interested in the Watergate Inquiry and Hilary Clinton was hardly a leading name at the time. So I did a check and found this: https://www.cato.org/blog/was-hillary-clinton-fired-nixon-impeachment-inquiry and this: http://urbanmyths.com/urban-myths/politics/fact-or-fiction-was-hillary-clinton-fired-from-watergate-investigation/ and this: http://www.snopes.com/politics/clintons/zeifman.asp and at least 10 other pages of other sources pointing out the inaccuracies in this statement – I didn’t bother to read them all. But then I suppose all these people pointing out that she was NOT fired, that the individual who, it is said was her boss who fired her was not in fact her boss, and did not hire her – they are all “the establishment”. Never let something as mundane as a fact limit your prejudices.
And may I also point out that I am now 75 years old. I left school in 1958 at the age of 1, to go to UWI when it was still UCWI, went back to British Guiana in 1961, worked for a year in the then Ministry of education and Social Development, then went to the London School of Economics as a post graduate student, returned to Guyana in 1967 to teach at the University of Guyana, with a short stint at the Caricom Secretariat as Education Officer, moved to Trinidad, where I worked in temporary positions vice lecturerers on leave, then went to the sugar company as Deputy Public Relations Manager, then to National Insurance Board as Public Relations Manager, before migrating to St Vincent. In other words Lostpet – I am not exactly a fool. And I learned a long time ago to fact check information before using it to form an opinion.
Here’s another Economist article on Lostpet’s “most corrupt human on earth, aka Hillary Clinton: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2016/11/democratic-scandal?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/2016117n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/LA/8058545/email&etear=dailydispatch
I suggest you start reading the independent media and not let the establishment-owned corporate media deceive you. Hopefully Trump will be able to keep these people down. They pay 1,500.$US to protest against Trump, soon they will run out of money, after they destroy what integrity the Democratic party has left after Hillary’s destruction. Let’s hope the Democrats can recover.
Ok, so Hillary is just a runner up to Donna Brazile who said she was only doing her job when she screwed over poor Bernie Sanders and leaked the debate questions to her good friend Hillary.
And I guess that Hillary doing her best to discredit and damage all of Bill’s sketels was only a wife protected her beloved spouse (with whom she hadn’t bumped ugglies with for years).
Also, all the hankie pankie at the Clinton foundation — granting special access to her as Secretary of State in exchange for donations — was just the price she had to pay to help the poor of the world.
Thank God so many American women — including millions of American Black, Hispanic, Latina, and members of other minority groups — had enough sense to reject this power-hungry and greedy member of the entrenched political elite.
I don’t know that what you have described makes her “the most corrupt human in creation” which was the hyperbole to which I objected. I did NOT say that she has never done nothing wrong. Nor do I say that because she did not accept the statements of the women who accused her husband that somehow makes her the “most crooked human om creation” You cannot know the emotions she endured; you cannot know the personal relationship she had with her husband – no one knows that. You cannot know the inner workings of any marriage but your own – and even that you can misinterpret. I believe (but note I say “I believe”, not that this is a fact. I don’t KNOW) he used his charm (which I understand he has) and his position to have several affairs. I object to a man of influence using his position to influence the actions of a young and inexperienced woman/girl – and I don’t mean underage – that is another matter. But none of the women concerned was underage, nor was he accused of rape or unwanted sexual groping, although some of the women were inexperienced. The wife who supports a husband in that situation for whatever reason – her own financial well-being, the hope of career advancement, to protect her children or whatever is not necessarily “the most crooked person in the world” For a start, the husband who is the perpetrator in these actions is far more crooked in my estimation. But the USA elected HIM twice. And Donald Trump has declared himself a bankrupt on numerous occasions. He has failed to pay contractors and workers. There is currently a court case against his Trump University for getting money from hopeful students by misleading (i.e. false) advertising. And he was recorded using what is euphemistically called “locker room talk”, but I call gross disrespect of women. Where does that all place him in the range of crookedness?
And how on earth do YOU know when or where or whether or not Hilary “bumped uglies” with her husband ? Were you there? Or did you just read a news item to that effect? You see, it is precisely that kind of uncritical acceptance of “news” that I am criticizing. And especially when it relates to a woman when men is similar or worse situations are let of with “it’s just locker room talk” or even worse “look at how she behaved. She asked for it” .
The phenomena of “false news” and sensational reporting (whether true or not) were once more likely to be found in sensation seeking news sources. Now they are more widely accessible on the internet, and as more and more people read and share such false news, the algorithms that determine the placing of items by a search engine, place these so-called news items higher and higher in the search results. So the Lostpets of this world (and, it seems, you) see them and believe the tales and the interpretations
And when you get around to condemning members of Congress who vote for or against bills because such bills are either supported or against the interests of lobbying agents who provide jobs in their districts or contribute handsomely to election campaigns, I will also publicly condemn Hilary for granting access to herself as Secretary of State (no one has suggested that this influenced her activities in the relations of the government of the USA and foreign governments) in return for a contribution to a a charitable foundation. Of course, you just might be able to convince me that a charitable foundation, benefiting third world countries, is less worthy of a contribution in return for a favour than a Congressional election district, and that the favour of talking with a Secretary of State is more crooked than the favour of getting money for your election campaign. Go right ahead. Convince me.
In spite of all the machines that “flip the vote from Trump to Hillary, In spite of the 1.8 million dead people registered to vote for Hillary, in spite of over 800,000 illegal aliens that voted for Hillary, In spite of 1.8 billion spent, in spite of the help of the corrupt establishment Corporate Media…TELLING US WHO TO VOTE FOR, SHE STILL LOST! This is a victory for the people and a defeat for the corrupt establishment.
Lostpet – like Breitbart News and Fox News? Or on the other side MSNBC?
When I read something I evaluate the information in the article, I compare it with what I already know,research other sources to see whether what I am reading is accurate, then come to a conclusion about whether a particular article is intelligently written and whether this particular news source has well thought out opinions. I do NOT pre-categorize sources as “establishment” or anti-establishment” and therefore not worth reading. Because, in my more than fifty-eight years since leaving school, and staring on a university education, I have been reading all sorts of magazines, newspapers, books etc, I have learned that even a newspaper or magazine or book by an author with whom I have disagreed, can nevertheless publish an analysis with which I do agree. And a magazine or newspaper with which i usually agree can publish something with which I do NOT agree.
The Economist is not an “establishment paper”. Sometimes it agrees with “the establishment'” however defined, and sometimes it does not. It has been in existence since the nineteenth century, when it was started as a free market supporter, campaigning against the Corn Laws that restricted the import of cheap wheat from America into the UK. If anything the Corn Laws were the epitome of “establishment” policies, since it was large land owners with contacts, not to mention seats they controlled, in parliament, who were advocates of continuing the Corn Laws.
You know, you’re like Trump. If something doesn’t fit your preconceived ideas, facts don’t matter. They’re all rigged. And if it agrees with your prejudices, it’s thw truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. When things don’t go your way, it’s corrupt, when they do, everything’s fine. For example, when I saw the election results I said that it’s a good thing that as it turned out it was Trump who won the electoral college and Hillary who won the popular vote. If it had been the other way around – Trump winning the popular vote and Hillary the electoral college – Breitbart, Fox News et al would all be screaming about how corrupt the system is – despite the little fact that the electoral college has existed for more that 200 years now, and there have been cases before where the winner of the popular vote does not win the electoral college – Gore-Bush being a recent case in point. But Trump won the electoral college. So all of a sudden the system he was railing about all along is now perfectly acceptable. .
We can continue the argument for eternity. You can continue to say Hillary is innocent of all those crimes. Hillary has stated that if she is brought down, she will expose others. You, being a liberal, are a perfect example of when they say:
To anger a Conservative, tell them a lie.
To anger a Liberal, tell them the truth.
I am NOT a “liberal”. I am however, someone who does not believe that because I read something in a book, or in a newspapers or on the internet, that it is necessarily true. What I am suggesting to you is that you investigate ALL claims whether they are “liberal” claims, “conservative” claims or claims with any other tag. Do not believe all that you read.
You may have seen recent concerns about “fake news” on the internet. I know that I have received countless emails from friends with warnings on various issues. Most were fakes. The latest I received was a “news” item purportedly a copy of People magazine from some years ago, in which Donald Trump was supposed to have said in an interview that if ever he entered politics he would do so as a Republican, because Republicans are stupid and will accept anything. It was FALSE. People Magazine had NO interview with Donald Trump to that effect. But that is now going the rounds on the internet. I have had emails sent by friends who should know better, telling me not to use antiperspirants because they cause cancer. In fact, both Facebook and Google have had so many complaints about false news over this election campaign, that even Mark Zuckerburg has at last agreed to look into the matter. And there is a report (and I do not know if this one is true) that a group of FB employees have formed an unofficial investigative panel of their own.
Of course, if you WANT to believe something to the extent that you are not prepared to read and asses the value of any contrary information, then go right ahead. You may be happy with that. but then don’t get dismayed when thing do not turn out as you expected, and blame someone else for “rigging” the system.
I expect that a number of people who supported Donald trump will be disappointed and disaffected in four years’ time. because the “bringing back “jobs that they expect – e.g. jobs in steel working factories that have disappeared. just will not happen. In some cases this is because of advances in technology, in other cases this may be because it is cheaper to do said jobs elsewhere. Bringing such jobs back to their historic sites, will raise prices for the very consumers for whom Trump needs to improve living conditions (the rich don’t depend on the cheap consumer items bought by the working poor – they buy expensive name brand items) And where technology has moved on it is a vain hope that somehow we can return to the old ways of making things. The whole of the 19th century Industrial Revolution, established that. The Luddites who went around destroying the new machinery in order to revive the jobs of artisan spinners and weavers failed to stop the new processes. What is needed is different types of education and training – which America seriously lacks, although some areas are trying to remedy this failing. They also need some way of cushioning the impact of job losses. Earned income tax credits for those in low paying occupations could help. But it is noteworthy that many of these remedies are often rejected my Congress (read conservatives in Congress) who interpret all such efforts as pandering to the idle. And there needs to be some curb on large corporations who park their profits in offshore havens ( and some not so offshore (Delaware, Nevada, Florida) in order to avoid paying taxes. But no President can do that on his own. The support of Congress is essential. And since so many “conservative” members of Congress accept what was called in the Reagan era “trickle down” economics – i.e. reduce taxes for the rich and reduce government spending by cutting infrastructure spending and assistance for the poo and somehow the economy will expand and everyone will be far better of. That this failed under Reagan, that instead of reducing inequalities and raising the general standard of living, this has INCREASED inequality, and as well as social mobility is ignored. Trump has now promised to increase infrastructure spending – Congress has to agree to the budget. We will see if this time around they will now do what they refused to do when Obama proposed such increases in spending. However if they agree to the increase nut insist on cutting taxes, then the US debt will increase, and there will be another problem on their hands. And curbing the large corporations is also going to be difficult in view of the fact that so many members of congress are financed by large corporations or depend on them for jobs in their districts. The lobbying powers of large corporations are remarkable!
And I have noticed this about many Americans. They object to big government and want to reduce the power and reach of just about any government agency – until disaster strikes, when they immediately require those same government agencies to come to their aid.
I wish them all luck, and await the grumbles when they discover that they will not get the wall, the ban on all Muslims, the jail for Hilary the “make America great again” (when has America stopped being great? It’s still the largest economy. It’s currency is still the world currency accepted everywhere) or (what they really want) the WASP dominated Nirvana of their imagination. (Don’t know what WASP is? White Anglo-Saxon Protestant – the people who dominated the original 13 colonies.)
Some of you who are interested in discussion might like to listen to this discussion at UWI, led by Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles at a post 2016 election Forum – “The Caribbean Say on the USA Today”