The rich are too small a group to win elections so they seek other constituencies-- anti-federal government rural folk and Evangelical Christians who see abortion as a form of genocide. Rich women can fly elsewhere for their abortions, so kowtowing to the Evangelicals on this issue costs the rich almost nothing.
When "Religious Freedoms" and the Right to Bear Arms suddenly become the dominant aspects of the U.S. culture, we as a country are clearly on the WRONG TRACK!!
Three(3) % of our population owns 50% of the guns.
In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus the Seven Sins – direct holdovers from the vice figures of Medieval morality and mystery plays – parade directly on stage: gluttony, sloth, lechery, pride, envy, wrath, and covetousness. Lucifer manifests them before Faustus for his entertainment and Faustus is delighted. It strikes me that the Marlowe play (less famous than Goethe’s poem) is here equally apt – the GOP appears not to mind that it has made a deal with a creature that embodies – nay, is the virtual Platonic form! – of each of these sins, both in his personal life and in his governing style (if he can be said to have one). Of course, Faustus repents in the end, but it is too late. Demons emerge from under the stage and drag Faustus to hell. In the 1616 version of the play (there is an earlier one dated to 1604), the disiecta membra of Faustus are discovered on the stage at play’s end. That is what will remain of the GOP – one hopes – at the end of Caligula a L’Orange’s so-called presidency. One can only hope the country and our planet is not in an equivalent state of disrepair.
The paranoid Russian intelligence asset Donald J. Trump is beyond schizophrenic. He actually has two separate brains - one in his bald head that makes angry 3AM tweets and picks fights with random persons. The other brain is being carried around by the constantly disambiguating Wayne LaPierre disciple, Stephen Miller.
FACT - Combining two(2) half-wits does not make a full wit.
Senator Corker has it right. WE ARE ALL IN GREAT DANGER! Trump is far too bat•••• crazy to be our President.
I think the posture taken by the police in Charlottesville -- a progressive town if one exists in the state of Virginia -- suggests that things do not look hopeful. They did nothing while the city was terrorized by brown shirts. We all saw it.
I live in a similar town (Champaign, IL), and I have never seen a black patrolman in the almost 10 years I've been living here, even though about 20% of the city is African-American. There's a history, too, but the last incident when a black youth was shot while minding his own business happened just before people got wise to the fact that their cell phones were a tool which could expose injustice to the whole world, or we might have become national news. Instead, the protests stayed local. I'm pretty sure that when the time comes, the vast majority of police will not be our friends. Serious and widespread recruitment and training problems for a long, long time.
We have a better shot with the military, where the top brass realized that regardless of their personal prejudices, they better adopt a zero tolerance policy toward racism or their army in Vietnam was going to collapse. And soldiers don't have unions. So now the ranks -- and even the officer corps -- are well-represented by African-Americans and Hispanics who are trained and efficient killers, so we won't be helpless.
The rationale and momentum of the scenario you describe leads directly to getting rid of Trump, opting for the more reliable execution of his essential vision by Pence.
What any autocrat really wants is control and predictability, after all.
Race is definitely one of the issues in this particular homicidal psychotic episode. No Hispanic or Muslim nor person of color could amass the ARSENAL of KILLING MACHINES purchased by the deranged WHITE drunken golfer assassin without being noticed.
Before Caligula became Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus he was fondly called ‘Baby Boots’ for how cute he was as a little boy. It is also said that his early reign was rather good, and satisfactory, in many ways. I mean to many Caligula’s turn to darkness was a sudden shock. Seriously even Nero was a entertaining musician, so what happens to these guys?
History is filled with the likes of people such as Trump, and to those who were always suspicious of him, well good on you. Trump is so crazy, that I would not put it pass him for his starting a third party. I also would not doubt that by Trump starting another political party, that he wouldn’t do fairly well with it. Maybe for old time 2016 election sake he would call it the ‘Deplorable Party’.
Lastly, I’ll just say this, it is a sad state of affairs that America has a face like Trump’s to compliment all of the dark side that America has accrued to it’s worldly persona.
Sorry. Everything you wrote is a diversion. A deranged white drunken golfer got his hands on an ARSENAL of KILLING MACHINES without being noticed. That is the FACT and the ISSUE.
Pence is a Seven Mountains Dominionist, an extreme right-wing "Christian" Nationalist movement tacitly being fed into the wide-screen evangelical churches which endeavor to control our country under the authority of those who interpret scriptures to suit their needs.
Basically, the American TALIBAN! And Pence is not alone.
There is a lot that is right here. There is also a depressing willingness to buy into Jewish conspiracy theories. David Frum has largely been drummed out of the Republican Party. Kristol and Stephens have been strongly anti-Trump for Republicans. And the only thing that guides Trump on who to listen to is whether or not they suck up to him. So the idea that this is a list of the people driving Trump's decision is absurd. The idea that the neo-cons supported the Iraq War because of Israel rather than because of their view of how the US should project power is also nonsense.
That is to say that there is no reason to think the neo-cons are who are influencing Trump's decision, and while the neo-cons did push the Iraq War (although only some of them were Jewish) there is no reason to think that this was not what they thought (stupidly) was best for the US. Of course the Iraq invasion wasn't actually good for Israel either.
We can now place precise dates on the American Century, that period in world history when it was obvious to everyone (except perhaps ourselves) that we had become a Gulliver among Lilliputians on the world stage, that the United States' influence was dominant economically, diplomatically, militarily, culturally, and even (to a point) morally in every region of the globe. It began in 1917 with the US entry into World War I and ended in 2017 with the inauguration of Donald Trump. 100 years exactly.
Now we are more like the cyclops after he met Odysseus -- a one-eyed monster now rendered completely blind, staggering around in a rage until we finally fall like a tree.
Agreed. Until/unless there's a motive, you can't decide whether this guy is a terrorist.
Remember the song "I don't like Mondays"? That was about a girl who shot classmates, and her only motive was the title of the song. That's not terrorism.
Perhaps the one positive thing that is coming out of the past two years' mess is that the presidential campaign -- both the Trump and Bernie Sanders phenomena -- and the ensuing dysfunction and division have exposed the absolute failure of the political and economic elites to deliver on any of the promises made by the "Washington Consensus," neo-liberalism, "the end of history" -- whatever you want to call it, over the past 25 years. The rising tide has not lifted all boats, and it has drowned more than a few.
But I see no signs they are getting this message. In fact, you're already seeing the same scams they were running 10 years ago -- reverse mortgages, home equity loans, etc. There's a whole new generation of suckers out there.
For a few -- the Koch brothers, Murdoch, Mnuchin, those hedge fund creeps behind Bannon -- this is precisely the situation they've been working toward for years, because a dysfunctional government means no cop on the beat, and thus they can steal, rape and plunder even more.
But they're not the majority, even among the rich. Why can't they see what's staring them in the face, that they can't have it all forever, that they can't squeeze people to infinity? Well, as Saul Alinsky once said (paraphrasing), he could convince a capitalist on Monday to do something on Tuesday that would make him money on Wednesday even though it would lead to his certain death on Thursday. And there doesn't seem to be anyone named Roosevelt around to save them from themselves this time. That line has run dry.
So now they find themselves in a situation we have not seen since the feeble-minded eldest sons of kings were still allowed to ascend to the throne, except now the feeble-minded king has nuclear weapons. And we merely hope that a small clique of politically conservative generals will refuse to follow orders when the time comes.
I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and I almost felt like apologizing.
What you say about lesser military powers being stuck with the US is just part of the problem. Lesser financial powers seem to be propping it up too. Saudi Arabia was sucked into that role by using its OPEC votes to create the petrodollar; Japan came following with its boom money; now China is getting in far too deep. Why do they invest in a dollar that has been losing value since 1971?
Between the countries that tolerate American power for military hegemony and ones that tolerate it for financial hegemony, we Americans can get away with infinite stupidity. No one can form a coalition to teach us a really deep lesson. Losing wars is not enough, it seems. Breaking the global financial markets in 2008 was not enough.
It's as if we're holding the world hostage, and we've just now realized that we can thus indulge our worst delusions by electing a Caligula. Neither people within or outside America can put a stop to this madness unless they're willing to bite the bullet and make real sacrifices for the struggle.
The whole thing is preposterously childish. If you are going to throw insults around do so with some wit, it takes the childishness out of it and stings more. Churchill memorably described Attlee as a 'sheep in sheep's clothing'. Another UK one I still recall is Dennis Healey commenting on a run in with Kenneth Clark as 'like being savaged by a dead sheep'. Such insults are redolent of a duel, Corker's a brawl. Why does this matter? Because something with wit would raise a smile with leaders like Macron or Putin (I am not sure May has any smiles in her reticule), whereas Corker's Care Home comment likely produces a head shaking sigh which does US prestige no good. It's one thing to have to contend with Trump but if his opposition is so little different, that becomes another matter.
In the end, it looks like Iran is honoring its signature on the pact, and not the world's greatest democracy. How can any nation trust us to keep our word, when we have got out of two major agreements under Trump, the Paris agreement, and the Iranian nuclear deal? It is embarrassing.
Something about sowing the wind.... I never thought I would live to see the coming of the whirlwind (I'm at the leading edge of the baby-boomer generation), but my mind is changing.
Does this mean that Trump is about to lose his majority in the Senate? He seems to be shooting himself in the foot by antagonizing the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a time when he is involved in so many hot international disputes.
For a bunch of politicians who don't want health care for all which is affordable, its hard to imagine why they don't want birth control. Birth control will enable women to control their own health and bodies and thus not require the use of pre natal and post natal care.
Perhaps Trump and his ilk are just hoping there will be more white babies to populate their new version of America.
These politicians who use the law and their positions to control the bodies of women are no different than the Taliban. They are the Christian Taliban and are no better than that other Taliban they love to hate.
So Trump would go to war to improve his ratings? Sounds about right. Lets hope they impeach the idiot before that happens.
Iran is in compliance and that is all there is to it. It doesn't have the greatest human rights record, but neither do a lot of other countries including China, Russia, India, etc.
Going to war with N. Korea, Trump must be nuts. That could kill 20 Million S. Korean's and they aren't interested in dying or a war with N. Korea.
if Trump were to start a war with any of these countries he needs to be arrested and taken to the Hague and tried as a war criminal, crimes against humanity. He can serve out his life sentence in the Netherlands.
Not fond of N. Korea or rather its leader but right now he looks more sane than Trump. We may not like what N. Korea is doing with missiles, etc. but they are a sovereign nation and as such have the right to determine what weapons of war they need. As to the nuclear business, well they have it and they aren't going to give it up so the Americans and the rest of the world will just have to get over it. They might try being nice for a chance with N. Korea. Being nasty isn't working. or as mother said, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Del, perhaps with the Generals around Trump he may not go loony tunes because if he does one of them may just shove him in a closet until his rant is over. We can only hope Tillerson and the General stay in their positions. It may be a lot of peoples chance to live to be old.
the title to the article is a very good question. Haven't seen the word terrorist associated with him from the Canadian media either. The guy is a terrorists, plan and simple. Yes, he most likely isn't being "named" as such because he is not only white but rich and those boys just don't do such things. It probably the reason every one keeps saying they don't have a motive. Since when does bad shit crazy need a reason. Oh, right when you're white. There appears to be a certain amount of effort also being put out to describe the shooter as perhaps mentally ill. The guy wasn't mentally ill. He was just bad shit crazy. There is a difference.
The shooter, in my opinion, is some one who has been in this mind set for along time. Perhaps as long ago as Timothy McVey and his bombing of the Federal Building. We may see more of this in the next few years, older white men committing acts of terror and thus being terrorists. McVey acted out while young. the other men having stewed on it for most of their adult lives, now see it as a time to act.
As some of us ask, is it safer in Baghdad or the U.S.A. Me, I'm not visiting either.
it is suprising that the U.S.A. has "gotten in it" with Turkey. There are just so many similarities between Erdogan and Trump you'd think they were brothers from a different mother. Of course is no one is home at many position in the American administration, then Trump and his ilk simply don't know what they are supposed to do.
Perhaps Erdogan, like Trump doesn't think of the ramifications of his actions hence the neglecting of the tourist industry.
Most likely at some future date Erdogan will crawl into bed with Russia.
It's a sign of just how bad a place we are in that people are looking to the likes of Tillerson and Corker and McCain for salvation. And I agree. Thank God they are at least partly standing up to Trump's insanity and uncontrollable destructive impulses....
The other aspect of this is Turkey's geographic position which makes it possible to exploit conflict between the US and Russia. Britain will be able to do that too when she's shot of the constraints of the EU.
Meanwhile, must I be the first to point out the incredibly sinister implication of Pence and every other right-winger on this matter who morphs a protest against police into a protest against soldiers?
Is there a difference anymore? Are the police the special military used to wage war on Blacks and Latinos? Like the special army the British used to wage war against the Irish, the Black and Tans, named for combining Police and Army uniforms?
Apparently Trump thinks Black people must honor the flags of both the United States and Confederate States. And White people who wave the Confederate flag don't dishonor the flag it was meant to expunge from Norfolk to El Paso.
If Iran plays this smart, Iran will be a BIG winner and the USA a BIG loser.
There are two types of economic sanctions: direct and indirect.
- Direct sanctions are when country "A" refuses to do any economic activity with country "B" to "punish" country "B."
- Indirect sanctions are when country "A" threatens country "C" to prevent country "C" from doing any economic activity with "bad" country "B."
Note that the USA has had direct sanctions on Iran since 1979 and just like the USA direct sanctions on Cuba, they have done absolutely nothing because the USA, contrary to their own delusions, is NOT the only quality supplier and market on earth.
To actually get Iran to the negotiating table, the USA persuaded many other countries on earth to also sanction Iran. Once Iran signed the agreement, all the global sanctions were lifted. Now the USA wants to put all those sanctions back in place by threatening the other nations.
BUT . . .
Trump has threatened so many nations, over so many things, that very few nations will probably be willing to participate in any further USA sanctions, leaving the USA isolated.
Of course, that will just cause trump to try to damage the countries that will not go along with the USA. Unfortunately for trump, the rest of the world can economically thrive without the USA and any attempt to use the global financial transaction network as a club, will just cause further withdrawal from the USA controlled SWIFT network, further isolating the USA.
As long as Iran does not give the non-USA counties reason to change their minds, most nations will probably ignore the USA because they are tired of USA bullying.
It is important to remember that most nations have industries that directly compete with USA industries and given an opportunity to make the local industries wealthier and hurt the competition, they will do it.
"What made sense 50 years ago is insane now." I would argue that it was insane even then. Watching Ken Burns' Viet Nam War documentary; recalling The Fog of War, Nixon's 'secret plan,' the domino theory, etc. reinforces the rightness of the antiwar movement then. And the antiwar voices have been right ever since, I would say without exception.
Seems to me the UK and Israel have committed themselves to the management of the US as the strategic lynchpin of their foreign policies. All countries tend to that relationship, since in terms of economics (aside from any other issues), when the US sneezes the World catches cold.
Israel has succeeded at this better than the UK, since it has done so well financially through the exercise of its power. The UK, at least historically, has at least been listened to sympathetically, but it comes off more as a supplicant. Never a good posture to assume.
As for Erdogan shooting himselve in the foot with American tourists and trade, has there ever been that much compared to what Turkey does with Russia? Erdogan has the experience of cutting them off from a couple years ago, so he should know. What's more interesting is how, in his egomania, the guy may begin to stray into the irrational. He's always struck me as pretty shrewd, but evidence of that is more consistent in his past. I wonder at what point Erdogan's current cunning becomes terminal hubris.
ALSO, most embassies have dozens, if not hundreds of locals working for them, in service and support roles. Is it really true that the the host country, or international law, grants the gardeners and janitors some special status?
This is a basic and inelegant thought, but find a way to require military action to be directly paid for via taxation. I.E. if we as a nation want to engage in a police action in whatever country, taxes go up correspondingly. Then, the citizens will respond.
Pence errs in believing he could dignify anything. His expensive appearance on the public's dollar demonstrates only his Trump poodle status. With apologies to poodles.
One ally the US can count on in any military conflict is their favourite poodle, we Brits over here in the UK. It has just been announced that we are preparing an unfinished aircraft carrier with no planes to put on it for action in North Korean waters or very nearby. Presumably our halfwit foreign secretary, Boris Johnson and that old fool defense minister, Michael Fallon have been given their orders from Trump and his junta of generals. If this is the case then prime minister Mrs May will see this as heaven sent distraction from her woes as a truly useless leader. Never mind the millions of men, women and children that will be slaughtered, Trump and May need a distraction from their own domestic problems and what better way to achieve that than war.
What is more important to remember is that Iran's offer of a grand bargain did not come out of US invasion of Iraq, but was prepared after the United States overthrew the Taliban with which Iran nearly went to war when they killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist after they overrun Mazar-i-Sharif. At that time, the State Department warned Iran in no uncertain terms not to take action against the Taliban who had come to power with US blessing and support through Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan.
The document that you refer to made the rounds in Iran from October 2002 and was then given to Swiss ambassador in Tehran who took care of US interests in Iran. The delivery of that message was delayed due to the preparations for the Iraq war and was finally handed to Dick Cheney in April 2003 who allegedly responded: "We do not deal with evil", because he and other hawks in the administration were already contemplating an attack on Iran. President Khatami was very keen on improving relations with the United States, but that rebuff weakened the Reformers and led to the victory of Ahmadinejad in the next round of presidential election.
If Trump kills the nuclear deal for no apparent reason except to undermine President Obama’s achievements and implement Netanyahu’s wishes this will again discredit the Iranian Reformers and will pave the way for the victory of the hardliners, if not an actual war between the two countries.
Yesterday, Senator Bob Corker said that Trump’s volatility could spark World War III. He added: “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.” In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday he added that the “vast majority” of congressional Republicans were concerned with the president’s volatile behavior and that rhetoric from the White House could set America “on the path to World War III.” He went on to say: “Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” Corker continued. “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.” Well, if this is the case, Congress is neglecting its constitutional responsibility to impeach a president who is not fit for office.
Perhaps there are some strategies that we can use to end this slide to oblivion.
* Understand that the battlefield includes the US: that these wars are not just fought "over there". The standard military doctrine of "bring the fight to the enemy" is also used by the other side. This is the motivation for most terrorism of middle eastern origin. Lets connect what is happening here with what is happening over there.
* We are handing our adversaries such as Russia and China the means to defeat us. The more that these adversaries and some so-called friends can induce us into forever wars the more our strength is sapped. It is ideal for these players that we fight these wars at some distance from them, they can just sit back and watch while occasionally stirring the pot. The “creative accounting” that maintains these wars will eventually crash just like in the financial world. Lets understand that these wars are not free.
* These wars are really a result of a US foreign policy frozen in amber. What made sense 50 years ago is insane now. We need a re-think of our foreign policy across the globe. The middle east should be the first as it is collapsing before our eyes.
There is something pharaonic about Herr Reichspräsident Strump's compulsion to erase Obama's presidency from memory, as if Obama were Akhenaten. There must be more to it than the gentle ribbing the President gave him at a white house correspondents' dinner.
As he acts out his neurosis, America suffers. The best outcome will be the world taking the position that he speaks only for himself and that one of the 'adults in the room' - Kelly, Tillerson, et al - is the voice to be heeded.
We are witnessing the further fracturing of the post WWII US foreign policy. The core of that policy was to contain the USSR. This policy included a lot of bad stuff; supporting dictators and other miserable regimes like Israel, that could be justified as real politik. That policy no longer make sense.
There are far more nimble players on the stage now such as China and Russia that need a more nimble US to counter. We have a foreign policy cast in amber that needs to change and change fast.
International law frowns on arresting embassy employees. Breaking into embassy property would be frowned upon as well. Turkey has alternative 'allies', I don't imagine Erdogan takes the prospect of losing US tourists that seriously, and no doubt a word in the right ear can provide visa exceptions for useful business entities. These things are childish and simply shouldn't get that far but when you eviscerate your Department of State they do become more likely. We can probably expect more of them.
It's hard to call it terrorism until you know what the motivation is. Also, law enforcement and Homeland Security have strict definitions as to what acts can be called acts of terrorism and at this time the actions in LV do not meet the critera. That definition does not include skin color or religion. Also, various non-whites have engaged in violent acts with multiple deaths and were not called terrorist attacks for the same reason. Hassan comes to mind as an example which was defined as workplace violence rather than terrorism despite considerable public pressure and lawsuits.
Feel free to campaign to change legal definition. It does matter in terms of charging, sentencing and insurance claims but it isn't about being white. Insisting that it is about skin color is misleading and only highlights the author's own prejudice and lack of research on the subject. I am sure this website can serve its readers better.
==IRAN'S HARD-LINERS PROVED RIGHT...AGAIN: Some forgotten history: “Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by US forces [in April 2003] an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table — including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups. But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative." Iran's hard-liners had their low opinion of US leadership confirmed. Iran's moderates were weakened. Within three years Khatami was out of office and the Iranian presidency was again in the hands of the right. link to detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com
To be meaningful, words must not be too broad. Legally and in most current dictionaries, "terrorism" is the use of violence to further or achieve a political or sometimes religious end by instilling fear.
An individual or group of individuals can be "terrorized" by things that are not "terrorism", such as a wild animal or an escaped criminal at large.
It is true, however, that "genuine" white terrorists are sometimes not labeled as "terrorists".
Paddock was a "mass murderer" but does not seem to have had any political agenda. Therefore, he was not a "terrorist".
You have to have some sort of a cause to be a terrorist. At this point they have not found a cause. It looks like he was just plain crazy but if they find something then he will be called a terrorist
it seems your system is broken - perhaps as Trump's excesses grow someone will propose a system where one unhinged individual cannot speak for the entire population...
I don't actually agree on this one. I think to be a terrorist, you have to have a political motive. And so far, there is no political motive for this tragedy.
Professor, you are at your best in this article!
I guess, reneging on promises is part of US exceptionalism. Ask any native American tribe you wish. Correction to Farhang's comment: Israel, singled out Iran as the main enemy long in 1988 under the leadership of Peres not in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq. In fact, the fictitious Iran nuclear weapon hasbara attests to the power of Israeli lobby all over the Western World, that is believe whatever fake news Israel makes up without questioning it.
As long as Mattis/McMaster/Kelly/Tillerson remain in their posts, I doubt Trump would go bonkers/looney tunes.
If they finally do resign because their POTUS is an insufferable idiot - or as our Sec. of State astutely noted, an "effin' idiot - well, better start heading to the bunker.
I slightly disagree in this case, though I absolutely agree about other cases where the Whites who committed violence clearly were attempting to coerce society thereby in a certain ideological direction, which is my definition of terrorism. The sheer blankness of Paddock, as opposed to the Oregon terrorists or Dylann Roof, is an interesting development. They were stochastic terrorists, who could figure out their marching orders without a chain of command. But Paddock just had a compulsion to slaughter a bunch of people, and apparently stalked concerts around the country to consider it before he finally went ahead and did it. That's not an ideology, or a form of coercion; there's nothing you could concede to him that would make him stop committing such acts.
However, the growth of these pathologies may be related to political issues, because of the loss of connection to a shared humanity. And the politics that choose to sever those connections in order to proclaim a Master Race must be seen as a road to many more misanthropic horrors. When regimes founded on such principles come to power, they need people who have the mental makeup to do their dirty work, regardless of their prior politics. We don't want to believe such a force of blank henchmen could exist among us, causing us to downgrade the threat of extremist rule. We should know better.
The importance here is not some psychotic drunken impotent golfer with "daddy issues" and delusions of grandeur.
What is important is the fact that virtually anyone who is a white man can accumulate an arsenal of KILLING MACHINES without drawing attention to their efforts.
I suggest watching "Tony Seba: Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation". If you have not watched Seba before, watch the first 15 minutes, you'll likely watch the rest. Even if he is only half right, the implications are profound.
The word terrorist has come to mean a person fighting against us for a cause. The word has the further advantage of allowing us to not ask about his cause or, even more dangerously, to question our own cause. Using the term “terrorist” means that there is dangerous knowledge there and to not dig further.
If on those rare occasions where a terrorist is asked "why" we hear things like "fighting against oppression", "opposing foreign military invasions", and “revenge for killing my people”. There is very little religious fanaticism: "God told me to do it". We may find that by learning the “why” we understand and become sympathetic.
It is a lovely bit of circular reasoning that allows us maintain the imperium.
Thus, Stephen Paddock is not a terrorist by today’s definition of the word.
Trump is as ignorant as sin, in fact, he may be the literal embodiment of sin, but I digress. Trump doesn't know anything about Iran and I'm sure couldn't find it on a world map, but he gets all of his misinformation from Fox and Friends and they are telling him that Iran is evil, evil I say. Someone above nailed it - this isn't about the U.S. and Iran, it is all about Israel. Iran doesn't have one nuke while Israel has hundreds. Who is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East? We need to invade and occupy Israel, the real source of problems in the Middle East!
How far the worm as turned. A killer with no obvious political agenda whatever their skin colour (like that matters) is a terrorist? the Unabomber was a terrorist, Paddock, at this stage, seems not to be. To try and conflate race, political motive and outright mentally ill (or at the least deeply disturbed) killer together distracts from meaningful dialogue. To lean heavily on the race issue only proves how weak this argument is.
Trump knows that liberal opposition will collapse as soon as he attacks and Americans lose their lives. He will wrap himself in the American flag and then go after those Americans further on the Left who will actively challenge his actions. This is how it will play out. And conservatives will cheer.
We know this scam will work, for a while. It always works. The Presidents who end wars get punished.
Nixon used the war both to get into power by promising to end it (while secretly promising Thieu the opposite), and by keeping it going so that he would get the boost in power and loyalty received by every war president. Is it a coincidence that when he finally settled the war in 1973, his routine criminality in the White House suddenly began to be viewed by the media and the public in a completely different light? As though doing it in wartime was for the national good, but doing it without a war was now suddenly about personal gain?
Under those circumstances, it's hard to deny that if George H. W. Bush had kept the war against Iraq going in 2004, he would have avoided his electoral fate. It's actually amazing that every president hasn't begun Vietnam-sized wars and kept them going until re-election time.
Except, ironically, that he seems to have been less of an ideological maniac than the modern NRA. He was a sociopath without dogma; maybe the organized sociopaths only turned to dogma because they knew they needed it to pose as an oppressed minority. Once they became a faction, they rapidly adopted all the evils of factionalism. treating their demands as a zero-sum game whose victims in every area of American life (everyone hurt by the President the NRA demanded, etc.) were as disregarded as the people Paddock slaughtered.
It seems almost inconceivable that one man’s ego can bring about the deaths of millions of people and cause mass destruction on an unimaginable scale...
I have one name for you...Bush!
The invasion of Iraq ...is still killing humans ...16 years later!
When will the rest of the world put the US on notice, sanction us, stop enabling our rush toward destruction on a continent-wide scale? The UN and NATO are so quick to intervene in petty incidents, but international organizations and spokesmen seem powerless to confront Uncle Sam going rogue.
Your first sentence is spot-on. The United Nations should be an organization that can prevent this exact thing, otherwise it's no good at all in keeping the peace in major ways. In this day, NO one man ought to have the power of life and death over the planet, or an entire country.
We must have a global government structure and complete denuclearization, or we are doomed, even if climate change doesn't do the job for us.
Everybody with any education at all should stop with this "alt-right" nonsense. This is a term that was invented to rebrand a very much older political philosophy. But we don't need to use the term they invented to confuse people. We should call them the old term.
They are Nazis. Breitbart is not "alt-right"; they are Nazis, plain and simple.
Smokescreen in order to mask Mr. Mueller's investigation ?
Wag-the-dog strategy against opinion polls reminding the Malvinas-Falkland fiasco ? Neither is pleasant ; moreover, both are compatible... Three heads between the chaos and us (U.S) ..... Let us have a nice weekend
The issue here is not some psychotic drunken golfer with delusions of grandeur but the fact that virtually anyone who is a white man can accumulate a f•••ing arsenal of KILLING MACHINES without drawing attention to their efforts!
As the rumble of the falls get closer and closer, maybe congress should think about a law or resolution that requires a Declaration of War from congress prior to the start of any military operations against any country that we are not already doing so. Might even mention North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela as specific no no's without the
declaration.
We've got a rabid dog for president, and it seems that there is no way to stop him from taking his next bite. Requiring a Declaration of War is not a sure fire restraint, given that many Republicans have the same inclinations as their pack leader, but maybe force a stop and think.
The notion that we, as a nation, cannot stop a cruel, incompetent, egomaniac, put in place by the electoral college, from starting wars as he sees fit, is more than scary.
As far as Iran is concerned what Trump has indicated is that he may not certify Iran's adherence to the JCPOA. Such certification is not part of the deal itself, it's an entirely US domestic requirement foisted on Obama by Congress, and Trump declining to do so would be being disrespectful to Congress since Iran's adherence has been reliably confirmed by everyone else. Failing to certify would have no immediate effect on the deal. What he would have to do is renounce it, and presumably reinstate the sanctions lifted in consequence of it's progressive implementation by Iran. That would have to pass through Congress and could indeed be done but not automatically as a result of Trump failing to certify Iran's adherence. The other signatories, including Iran, might well decide to adhere to it, in which case their task would be to find ways in which to protect their commercial entities from the the effects of US punitive actions. Considering that would be the UK, France, China, Russia, Germany, the EU itself, all the members of the G77, and probably everyone else bar Israel and a handful of ME depots, that would involve one hell of a face off and saner voices might prevail.
North Korea is another matter. Attacking Pyongyang is something, I understand, he could initiate off his own bat. Several 'experts' have postulated various scenarios consequent on such an act and none of them is in any way appealing. He wouldn't even earn a place in history because there likely wouldn't be anyone around to write it.
The first responsibility of every state is to protect its citizens against actual and potential harm. Given Uncle Sam's posture and Israel's non-stop threats (& both are nuclear armed states), why should Iran refrain from developing its own military deterrent? In talking to my relatives in Iran who are squarely in the "opposition" camp, the same people that US says are her concerns, they are criticizing the government for being naive and leaving Iran defenseless. That is the real story. When the reformist camp in Iran sides with the hardliners there, all bets are off.
Coal-fired power generation plants have no way to prevent the dangerous % of mercury in coal from reaching our atmosphere and oceans where it accumulates and kills.
Worthy of note: went to the EPA website to retrieve this reference chart - link to epa.gov and found it removed. Was forwarded to another site which was designed by MORONS and was a dead end.
To protect those who poison our planet, all incriminating EPA data has been scrubbed.
Are administration concerted efforts to suppress important facts which were previously available and are vital to understanding the safety of the the air we breathe a violation of the First Amendment and in doing so, obviates a "clear and present danger" to the citizens of our country?
Will the military force 25th Amendment action? The craven Republicans can't stop dithering about their race base.
The military has to know that we can't win in Iran, a country with far more resources than the Afghanistan quagmire.
Also, outdoing the "fire and fury" (massive war crimes) of the 1950-53 Korean War would be almost impossible, unless MacArthur's evil plan to create a radioactive dead zone was executed.
Executing that plan will put Trump and America in history like Hitler and Germany.
"General Douglas MacArthur’s plan to win was a list of targets sent to the Pentagon, requesting 34 atomic bombs to create 'a belt of radioactive cobalt across the neck of Manchuria so that there could be no land invasion of Korea from the north for at least 60 years,'”
from: link to irishtimes.com
White Supremacy is itself a cover story, but one so ancient that its followers have long since made it into a hallowed tradition whose intent can't be disputed - even as it cynically makes tactical shifts to "religious freedom" or "White separatism". We're stuck with it because it was the basis under which the inherent poverty of Southern resource-extraction economics was made viable for capitalist profits without collapsing into rebellion. That in turn makes the South a low-wage anomaly that capitalists from sea to shining sea can use to distort labor markets by threatening to move there.
And the essence of it is: we underpay everybody, but half of them get a special bonus of getting to beat and abuse and scapegoat the other half and the latter aren't allowed to fight back. It is institutionalized sadism.
For the Far Right, the restoration of that order nationwide means an financial incentive they can use to lure the capitalists into a fascist alliance. But it also connects these mostly-Northern, anti-immigrant racists with the existing pool of anti-Black and anti-Latino racists as their natural leaders.
So where do you break the chains tying this alliance together, or is it too late? One of the oldest cover stories White Supremacists have used is fealty to localized government, which has served them well when they needed to lie low, but not when they tried to create a country reaching from Norfolk to El Paso. I think you can make them choke on this secessionist contradiction. Start movements not to secede from America, but to secede from the particular Red State that oppresses its cities and minorities. The "alt-Right" leaders and corporations will try to fight that because they can do the Congressional math. But you go for their base - tell them that if their racist propaganda is true, then their states (which impose substantial tax burdens too) will be better off without the contaminated cities. Those cities create jobs from which suburban bigots cart away their paychecks to evade responsibilities in the sticks. Make them fight each other over where the borders are to be redrawn.
It seems almost inconceivable that one man's ego can bring about the deaths of millions of people and cause mass destruction on an unimaginable scale. I believe Trumps insanity, for that's what it really is, will be used by the military, arms dealers and manufactures together with the deep state, Israel and many other invested interests to attack North Korea. They will all but exterminate the population of North Korea and lay the country to waste. They will use this as an example to middle east countries and others as an example of what they can expect if they don't capitulate. I'm quite sure that had Clinton won, something similar would be happening. Presidents don't lead, they are managed and manipulated by dark forces behind facade of government. Trumps ego is the catalyst for the conflagration to come.
The U.S. media covers the agreement as if it were bilateral (Iran and U.S.). In fact, it is an 8 country agreement that includes Russia, China, France, U.K., E.U. and Germany. If Trumps backs out of the deal, the others may well say, "Tillerson is right, you are an f....king moron," and continue to trade with Iran. If so, it would still be in Iran's best interests to continue abiding by the agreement.
Perhaps the Republican dominated Congress will get smart and at the end of the 60 days simply refuse to ratify Trump's "decertification". (I'm not holding my breath however.)
The US is quickly becoming a rogue nation, a one-nation axis of evil. Even Angela Merkel said she wouldn't automatically support the US against North Korea. Too bad our mainstream media is in this bubble, where the rest of the world is irrelevant.
So far the Iranians seem not to be taking advantage of us, in our free fall away from democracy, not rising to the militarist bait, I hope that continues.
We need to start making glass etchings and stone carvings stating: "It really was the 45th President," so that future generations don't have to debate what finally caused the American iteration of empire to fatally collapse.
Anyone with a slight sense of history knows the US reneges on its promises, treaties and agreements.
Just ask the Russians (Soviet Union) about the promise not to expand NATO to the borders of Russia (by Reagan).
As dangerous and sad as all of this is, the timing is at least opportune in one regard. Senator McCain has been receiving a lot of praise recently for his vote on Healthcare. yet, he is an arch warmonger and advocate for death and killing and his vote and stance here will be a reminder of his true character again.
The rich are too small a group to win elections so they seek other constituencies-- anti-federal government rural folk and Evangelical Christians who see abortion as a form of genocide. Rich women can fly elsewhere for their abortions, so kowtowing to the Evangelicals on this issue costs the rich almost nothing.
When "Religious Freedoms" and the Right to Bear Arms suddenly become the dominant aspects of the U.S. culture, we as a country are clearly on the WRONG TRACK!!
Three(3) % of our population owns 50% of the guns.
link to qz.com
Paddock was one of the 3%!
Awarded best comment ever prize by IC editorial board!
In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus the Seven Sins – direct holdovers from the vice figures of Medieval morality and mystery plays – parade directly on stage: gluttony, sloth, lechery, pride, envy, wrath, and covetousness. Lucifer manifests them before Faustus for his entertainment and Faustus is delighted. It strikes me that the Marlowe play (less famous than Goethe’s poem) is here equally apt – the GOP appears not to mind that it has made a deal with a creature that embodies – nay, is the virtual Platonic form! – of each of these sins, both in his personal life and in his governing style (if he can be said to have one). Of course, Faustus repents in the end, but it is too late. Demons emerge from under the stage and drag Faustus to hell. In the 1616 version of the play (there is an earlier one dated to 1604), the disiecta membra of Faustus are discovered on the stage at play’s end. That is what will remain of the GOP – one hopes – at the end of Caligula a L’Orange’s so-called presidency. One can only hope the country and our planet is not in an equivalent state of disrepair.
The paranoid Russian intelligence asset Donald J. Trump is beyond schizophrenic. He actually has two separate brains - one in his bald head that makes angry 3AM tweets and picks fights with random persons. The other brain is being carried around by the constantly disambiguating Wayne LaPierre disciple, Stephen Miller.
FACT - Combining two(2) half-wits does not make a full wit.
Senator Corker has it right. WE ARE ALL IN GREAT DANGER! Trump is far too bat•••• crazy to be our President.
I think the posture taken by the police in Charlottesville -- a progressive town if one exists in the state of Virginia -- suggests that things do not look hopeful. They did nothing while the city was terrorized by brown shirts. We all saw it.
I live in a similar town (Champaign, IL), and I have never seen a black patrolman in the almost 10 years I've been living here, even though about 20% of the city is African-American. There's a history, too, but the last incident when a black youth was shot while minding his own business happened just before people got wise to the fact that their cell phones were a tool which could expose injustice to the whole world, or we might have become national news. Instead, the protests stayed local. I'm pretty sure that when the time comes, the vast majority of police will not be our friends. Serious and widespread recruitment and training problems for a long, long time.
We have a better shot with the military, where the top brass realized that regardless of their personal prejudices, they better adopt a zero tolerance policy toward racism or their army in Vietnam was going to collapse. And soldiers don't have unions. So now the ranks -- and even the officer corps -- are well-represented by African-Americans and Hispanics who are trained and efficient killers, so we won't be helpless.
The rationale and momentum of the scenario you describe leads directly to getting rid of Trump, opting for the more reliable execution of his essential vision by Pence.
What any autocrat really wants is control and predictability, after all.
Race is definitely one of the issues in this particular homicidal psychotic episode. No Hispanic or Muslim nor person of color could amass the ARSENAL of KILLING MACHINES purchased by the deranged WHITE drunken golfer assassin without being noticed.
To assert otherwise is counter-productive.
Before Caligula became Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus he was fondly called ‘Baby Boots’ for how cute he was as a little boy. It is also said that his early reign was rather good, and satisfactory, in many ways. I mean to many Caligula’s turn to darkness was a sudden shock. Seriously even Nero was a entertaining musician, so what happens to these guys?
History is filled with the likes of people such as Trump, and to those who were always suspicious of him, well good on you. Trump is so crazy, that I would not put it pass him for his starting a third party. I also would not doubt that by Trump starting another political party, that he wouldn’t do fairly well with it. Maybe for old time 2016 election sake he would call it the ‘Deplorable Party’.
Lastly, I’ll just say this, it is a sad state of affairs that America has a face like Trump’s to compliment all of the dark side that America has accrued to it’s worldly persona.
Sorry. Everything you wrote is a diversion. A deranged white drunken golfer got his hands on an ARSENAL of KILLING MACHINES without being noticed. That is the FACT and the ISSUE.
Everything else is idle chatter noise.
Ike warned all of us on January 17, 1961 and WE DIDN'T LISTEN!
Pence is a Seven Mountains Dominionist, an extreme right-wing "Christian" Nationalist movement tacitly being fed into the wide-screen evangelical churches which endeavor to control our country under the authority of those who interpret scriptures to suit their needs.
Basically, the American TALIBAN! And Pence is not alone.
There is a lot that is right here. There is also a depressing willingness to buy into Jewish conspiracy theories. David Frum has largely been drummed out of the Republican Party. Kristol and Stephens have been strongly anti-Trump for Republicans. And the only thing that guides Trump on who to listen to is whether or not they suck up to him. So the idea that this is a list of the people driving Trump's decision is absurd. The idea that the neo-cons supported the Iraq War because of Israel rather than because of their view of how the US should project power is also nonsense.
That is to say that there is no reason to think the neo-cons are who are influencing Trump's decision, and while the neo-cons did push the Iraq War (although only some of them were Jewish) there is no reason to think that this was not what they thought (stupidly) was best for the US. Of course the Iraq invasion wasn't actually good for Israel either.
We can now place precise dates on the American Century, that period in world history when it was obvious to everyone (except perhaps ourselves) that we had become a Gulliver among Lilliputians on the world stage, that the United States' influence was dominant economically, diplomatically, militarily, culturally, and even (to a point) morally in every region of the globe. It began in 1917 with the US entry into World War I and ended in 2017 with the inauguration of Donald Trump. 100 years exactly.
Now we are more like the cyclops after he met Odysseus -- a one-eyed monster now rendered completely blind, staggering around in a rage until we finally fall like a tree.
But it was fun while it lasted.
Agreed. Until/unless there's a motive, you can't decide whether this guy is a terrorist.
Remember the song "I don't like Mondays"? That was about a girl who shot classmates, and her only motive was the title of the song. That's not terrorism.
Perhaps the one positive thing that is coming out of the past two years' mess is that the presidential campaign -- both the Trump and Bernie Sanders phenomena -- and the ensuing dysfunction and division have exposed the absolute failure of the political and economic elites to deliver on any of the promises made by the "Washington Consensus," neo-liberalism, "the end of history" -- whatever you want to call it, over the past 25 years. The rising tide has not lifted all boats, and it has drowned more than a few.
But I see no signs they are getting this message. In fact, you're already seeing the same scams they were running 10 years ago -- reverse mortgages, home equity loans, etc. There's a whole new generation of suckers out there.
For a few -- the Koch brothers, Murdoch, Mnuchin, those hedge fund creeps behind Bannon -- this is precisely the situation they've been working toward for years, because a dysfunctional government means no cop on the beat, and thus they can steal, rape and plunder even more.
But they're not the majority, even among the rich. Why can't they see what's staring them in the face, that they can't have it all forever, that they can't squeeze people to infinity? Well, as Saul Alinsky once said (paraphrasing), he could convince a capitalist on Monday to do something on Tuesday that would make him money on Wednesday even though it would lead to his certain death on Thursday. And there doesn't seem to be anyone named Roosevelt around to save them from themselves this time. That line has run dry.
So now they find themselves in a situation we have not seen since the feeble-minded eldest sons of kings were still allowed to ascend to the throne, except now the feeble-minded king has nuclear weapons. And we merely hope that a small clique of politically conservative generals will refuse to follow orders when the time comes.
I visited Independence Hall in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, and I almost felt like apologizing.
What you say about lesser military powers being stuck with the US is just part of the problem. Lesser financial powers seem to be propping it up too. Saudi Arabia was sucked into that role by using its OPEC votes to create the petrodollar; Japan came following with its boom money; now China is getting in far too deep. Why do they invest in a dollar that has been losing value since 1971?
Between the countries that tolerate American power for military hegemony and ones that tolerate it for financial hegemony, we Americans can get away with infinite stupidity. No one can form a coalition to teach us a really deep lesson. Losing wars is not enough, it seems. Breaking the global financial markets in 2008 was not enough.
It's as if we're holding the world hostage, and we've just now realized that we can thus indulge our worst delusions by electing a Caligula. Neither people within or outside America can put a stop to this madness unless they're willing to bite the bullet and make real sacrifices for the struggle.
The whole thing is preposterously childish. If you are going to throw insults around do so with some wit, it takes the childishness out of it and stings more. Churchill memorably described Attlee as a 'sheep in sheep's clothing'. Another UK one I still recall is Dennis Healey commenting on a run in with Kenneth Clark as 'like being savaged by a dead sheep'. Such insults are redolent of a duel, Corker's a brawl. Why does this matter? Because something with wit would raise a smile with leaders like Macron or Putin (I am not sure May has any smiles in her reticule), whereas Corker's Care Home comment likely produces a head shaking sigh which does US prestige no good. It's one thing to have to contend with Trump but if his opposition is so little different, that becomes another matter.
And yet the markets keep rewarding Trump.
Of course, they kept rewarding Bush Junior -- until things started collapsing.
In the end, it looks like Iran is honoring its signature on the pact, and not the world's greatest democracy. How can any nation trust us to keep our word, when we have got out of two major agreements under Trump, the Paris agreement, and the Iranian nuclear deal? It is embarrassing.
Something about sowing the wind.... I never thought I would live to see the coming of the whirlwind (I'm at the leading edge of the baby-boomer generation), but my mind is changing.
Does this mean that Trump is about to lose his majority in the Senate? He seems to be shooting himself in the foot by antagonizing the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at a time when he is involved in so many hot international disputes.
the losingest military on the planet but it's not their fault they are tasked with fighting unwinnable wars.
For a bunch of politicians who don't want health care for all which is affordable, its hard to imagine why they don't want birth control. Birth control will enable women to control their own health and bodies and thus not require the use of pre natal and post natal care.
Perhaps Trump and his ilk are just hoping there will be more white babies to populate their new version of America.
These politicians who use the law and their positions to control the bodies of women are no different than the Taliban. They are the Christian Taliban and are no better than that other Taliban they love to hate.
So Trump would go to war to improve his ratings? Sounds about right. Lets hope they impeach the idiot before that happens.
Iran is in compliance and that is all there is to it. It doesn't have the greatest human rights record, but neither do a lot of other countries including China, Russia, India, etc.
Going to war with N. Korea, Trump must be nuts. That could kill 20 Million S. Korean's and they aren't interested in dying or a war with N. Korea.
if Trump were to start a war with any of these countries he needs to be arrested and taken to the Hague and tried as a war criminal, crimes against humanity. He can serve out his life sentence in the Netherlands.
Not fond of N. Korea or rather its leader but right now he looks more sane than Trump. We may not like what N. Korea is doing with missiles, etc. but they are a sovereign nation and as such have the right to determine what weapons of war they need. As to the nuclear business, well they have it and they aren't going to give it up so the Americans and the rest of the world will just have to get over it. They might try being nice for a chance with N. Korea. Being nasty isn't working. or as mother said, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Del, perhaps with the Generals around Trump he may not go loony tunes because if he does one of them may just shove him in a closet until his rant is over. We can only hope Tillerson and the General stay in their positions. It may be a lot of peoples chance to live to be old.
the title to the article is a very good question. Haven't seen the word terrorist associated with him from the Canadian media either. The guy is a terrorists, plan and simple. Yes, he most likely isn't being "named" as such because he is not only white but rich and those boys just don't do such things. It probably the reason every one keeps saying they don't have a motive. Since when does bad shit crazy need a reason. Oh, right when you're white. There appears to be a certain amount of effort also being put out to describe the shooter as perhaps mentally ill. The guy wasn't mentally ill. He was just bad shit crazy. There is a difference.
The shooter, in my opinion, is some one who has been in this mind set for along time. Perhaps as long ago as Timothy McVey and his bombing of the Federal Building. We may see more of this in the next few years, older white men committing acts of terror and thus being terrorists. McVey acted out while young. the other men having stewed on it for most of their adult lives, now see it as a time to act.
As some of us ask, is it safer in Baghdad or the U.S.A. Me, I'm not visiting either.
it is suprising that the U.S.A. has "gotten in it" with Turkey. There are just so many similarities between Erdogan and Trump you'd think they were brothers from a different mother. Of course is no one is home at many position in the American administration, then Trump and his ilk simply don't know what they are supposed to do.
Perhaps Erdogan, like Trump doesn't think of the ramifications of his actions hence the neglecting of the tourist industry.
Most likely at some future date Erdogan will crawl into bed with Russia.
It's a sign of just how bad a place we are in that people are looking to the likes of Tillerson and Corker and McCain for salvation. And I agree. Thank God they are at least partly standing up to Trump's insanity and uncontrollable destructive impulses....
This is truly amazing. Maybe partly due to the shambles our State Dept is in?
I wonder how this affects US military personnel- and their families?
Christian(?) who peddles hate, and really wants the dumps position?
The other aspect of this is Turkey's geographic position which makes it possible to exploit conflict between the US and Russia. Britain will be able to do that too when she's shot of the constraints of the EU.
Meanwhile, must I be the first to point out the incredibly sinister implication of Pence and every other right-winger on this matter who morphs a protest against police into a protest against soldiers?
Is there a difference anymore? Are the police the special military used to wage war on Blacks and Latinos? Like the special army the British used to wage war against the Irish, the Black and Tans, named for combining Police and Army uniforms?
Apparently Trump thinks Black people must honor the flags of both the United States and Confederate States. And White people who wave the Confederate flag don't dishonor the flag it was meant to expunge from Norfolk to El Paso.
Huh.
wish we Aussies could peel off too...
(just til the warmongers leave)
If Iran plays this smart, Iran will be a BIG winner and the USA a BIG loser.
There are two types of economic sanctions: direct and indirect.
- Direct sanctions are when country "A" refuses to do any economic activity with country "B" to "punish" country "B."
- Indirect sanctions are when country "A" threatens country "C" to prevent country "C" from doing any economic activity with "bad" country "B."
Note that the USA has had direct sanctions on Iran since 1979 and just like the USA direct sanctions on Cuba, they have done absolutely nothing because the USA, contrary to their own delusions, is NOT the only quality supplier and market on earth.
To actually get Iran to the negotiating table, the USA persuaded many other countries on earth to also sanction Iran. Once Iran signed the agreement, all the global sanctions were lifted. Now the USA wants to put all those sanctions back in place by threatening the other nations.
BUT . . .
Trump has threatened so many nations, over so many things, that very few nations will probably be willing to participate in any further USA sanctions, leaving the USA isolated.
Of course, that will just cause trump to try to damage the countries that will not go along with the USA. Unfortunately for trump, the rest of the world can economically thrive without the USA and any attempt to use the global financial transaction network as a club, will just cause further withdrawal from the USA controlled SWIFT network, further isolating the USA.
As long as Iran does not give the non-USA counties reason to change their minds, most nations will probably ignore the USA because they are tired of USA bullying.
It is important to remember that most nations have industries that directly compete with USA industries and given an opportunity to make the local industries wealthier and hurt the competition, they will do it.
Trump is shooting the USA industries in the foot.
"What made sense 50 years ago is insane now." I would argue that it was insane even then. Watching Ken Burns' Viet Nam War documentary; recalling The Fog of War, Nixon's 'secret plan,' the domino theory, etc. reinforces the rightness of the antiwar movement then. And the antiwar voices have been right ever since, I would say without exception.
Seems to me the UK and Israel have committed themselves to the management of the US as the strategic lynchpin of their foreign policies. All countries tend to that relationship, since in terms of economics (aside from any other issues), when the US sneezes the World catches cold.
Israel has succeeded at this better than the UK, since it has done so well financially through the exercise of its power. The UK, at least historically, has at least been listened to sympathetically, but it comes off more as a supplicant. Never a good posture to assume.
As for Erdogan shooting himselve in the foot with American tourists and trade, has there ever been that much compared to what Turkey does with Russia? Erdogan has the experience of cutting them off from a couple years ago, so he should know. What's more interesting is how, in his egomania, the guy may begin to stray into the irrational. He's always struck me as pretty shrewd, but evidence of that is more consistent in his past. I wonder at what point Erdogan's current cunning becomes terminal hubris.
ALSO, most embassies have dozens, if not hundreds of locals working for them, in service and support roles. Is it really true that the the host country, or international law, grants the gardeners and janitors some special status?
This is a basic and inelegant thought, but find a way to require military action to be directly paid for via taxation. I.E. if we as a nation want to engage in a police action in whatever country, taxes go up correspondingly. Then, the citizens will respond.
thanks!
Pence errs in believing he could dignify anything. His expensive appearance on the public's dollar demonstrates only his Trump poodle status. With apologies to poodles.
One ally the US can count on in any military conflict is their favourite poodle, we Brits over here in the UK. It has just been announced that we are preparing an unfinished aircraft carrier with no planes to put on it for action in North Korean waters or very nearby. Presumably our halfwit foreign secretary, Boris Johnson and that old fool defense minister, Michael Fallon have been given their orders from Trump and his junta of generals. If this is the case then prime minister Mrs May will see this as heaven sent distraction from her woes as a truly useless leader. Never mind the millions of men, women and children that will be slaughtered, Trump and May need a distraction from their own domestic problems and what better way to achieve that than war.
What is more important to remember is that Iran's offer of a grand bargain did not come out of US invasion of Iraq, but was prepared after the United States overthrew the Taliban with which Iran nearly went to war when they killed eight Iranian diplomats and a journalist after they overrun Mazar-i-Sharif. At that time, the State Department warned Iran in no uncertain terms not to take action against the Taliban who had come to power with US blessing and support through Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan.
The document that you refer to made the rounds in Iran from October 2002 and was then given to Swiss ambassador in Tehran who took care of US interests in Iran. The delivery of that message was delayed due to the preparations for the Iraq war and was finally handed to Dick Cheney in April 2003 who allegedly responded: "We do not deal with evil", because he and other hawks in the administration were already contemplating an attack on Iran. President Khatami was very keen on improving relations with the United States, but that rebuff weakened the Reformers and led to the victory of Ahmadinejad in the next round of presidential election.
If Trump kills the nuclear deal for no apparent reason except to undermine President Obama’s achievements and implement Netanyahu’s wishes this will again discredit the Iranian Reformers and will pave the way for the victory of the hardliners, if not an actual war between the two countries.
Yesterday, Senator Bob Corker said that Trump’s volatility could spark World War III. He added: “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.” In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday he added that the “vast majority” of congressional Republicans were concerned with the president’s volatile behavior and that rhetoric from the White House could set America “on the path to World War III.” He went on to say: “Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” Corker continued. “Of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.” Well, if this is the case, Congress is neglecting its constitutional responsibility to impeach a president who is not fit for office.
What is it with these Christian Nationalists always wanting access to the reproductive organs of woman they don't know for the long arm of the law?
Pompous RACIST Christian Nationalists require resorting to divisive stunts to fire up their base to hate.
Apparently, the First Amendment is NOT in VP Pence's Holy Bible.
more importantly at Dolt 45's direction. So there is no great principle of respecting the flag, it's all about licking the boot.
Interesting post. A bit rough typographically, which doesn't really matter, except here:
> Erdogan’s bodyguards have been protesters on US soil
I think you "beaten" (not "been"). That word makes a difference.
Perhaps there are some strategies that we can use to end this slide to oblivion.
* Understand that the battlefield includes the US: that these wars are not just fought "over there". The standard military doctrine of "bring the fight to the enemy" is also used by the other side. This is the motivation for most terrorism of middle eastern origin. Lets connect what is happening here with what is happening over there.
* We are handing our adversaries such as Russia and China the means to defeat us. The more that these adversaries and some so-called friends can induce us into forever wars the more our strength is sapped. It is ideal for these players that we fight these wars at some distance from them, they can just sit back and watch while occasionally stirring the pot. The “creative accounting” that maintains these wars will eventually crash just like in the financial world. Lets understand that these wars are not free.
* These wars are really a result of a US foreign policy frozen in amber. What made sense 50 years ago is insane now. We need a re-think of our foreign policy across the globe. The middle east should be the first as it is collapsing before our eyes.
There is something pharaonic about Herr Reichspräsident Strump's compulsion to erase Obama's presidency from memory, as if Obama were Akhenaten. There must be more to it than the gentle ribbing the President gave him at a white house correspondents' dinner.
As he acts out his neurosis, America suffers. The best outcome will be the world taking the position that he speaks only for himself and that one of the 'adults in the room' - Kelly, Tillerson, et al - is the voice to be heeded.
We are witnessing the further fracturing of the post WWII US foreign policy. The core of that policy was to contain the USSR. This policy included a lot of bad stuff; supporting dictators and other miserable regimes like Israel, that could be justified as real politik. That policy no longer make sense.
There are far more nimble players on the stage now such as China and Russia that need a more nimble US to counter. We have a foreign policy cast in amber that needs to change and change fast.
International law frowns on arresting embassy employees. Breaking into embassy property would be frowned upon as well. Turkey has alternative 'allies', I don't imagine Erdogan takes the prospect of losing US tourists that seriously, and no doubt a word in the right ear can provide visa exceptions for useful business entities. These things are childish and simply shouldn't get that far but when you eviscerate your Department of State they do become more likely. We can probably expect more of them.
It's hard to call it terrorism until you know what the motivation is. Also, law enforcement and Homeland Security have strict definitions as to what acts can be called acts of terrorism and at this time the actions in LV do not meet the critera. That definition does not include skin color or religion. Also, various non-whites have engaged in violent acts with multiple deaths and were not called terrorist attacks for the same reason. Hassan comes to mind as an example which was defined as workplace violence rather than terrorism despite considerable public pressure and lawsuits.
Feel free to campaign to change legal definition. It does matter in terms of charging, sentencing and insurance claims but it isn't about being white. Insisting that it is about skin color is misleading and only highlights the author's own prejudice and lack of research on the subject. I am sure this website can serve its readers better.
==IRAN'S HARD-LINERS PROVED RIGHT...AGAIN: Some forgotten history: “Just after the lightning takeover of Baghdad by US forces [in April 2003] an unusual two-page document spewed out of a fax machine at the Near East bureau of the State Department. It was a proposal from Iran for a broad dialogue with the United States, and the fax suggested everything was on the table — including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups. But top Bush administration officials, convinced the Iranian government was on the verge of collapse, belittled the initiative." Iran's hard-liners had their low opinion of US leadership confirmed. Iran's moderates were weakened. Within three years Khatami was out of office and the Iranian presidency was again in the hands of the right. link to detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com
To be meaningful, words must not be too broad. Legally and in most current dictionaries, "terrorism" is the use of violence to further or achieve a political or sometimes religious end by instilling fear.
An individual or group of individuals can be "terrorized" by things that are not "terrorism", such as a wild animal or an escaped criminal at large.
It is true, however, that "genuine" white terrorists are sometimes not labeled as "terrorists".
Paddock was a "mass murderer" but does not seem to have had any political agenda. Therefore, he was not a "terrorist".
You have to have some sort of a cause to be a terrorist. At this point they have not found a cause. It looks like he was just plain crazy but if they find something then he will be called a terrorist
it seems your system is broken - perhaps as Trump's excesses grow someone will propose a system where one unhinged individual cannot speak for the entire population...
I don't actually agree on this one. I think to be a terrorist, you have to have a political motive. And so far, there is no political motive for this tragedy.
Professor, you are at your best in this article!
I guess, reneging on promises is part of US exceptionalism. Ask any native American tribe you wish. Correction to Farhang's comment: Israel, singled out Iran as the main enemy long in 1988 under the leadership of Peres not in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq. In fact, the fictitious Iran nuclear weapon hasbara attests to the power of Israeli lobby all over the Western World, that is believe whatever fake news Israel makes up without questioning it.
A good question : link to theguardian.com
Of course the answer is mot satisfying. How could it ?
As long as Mattis/McMaster/Kelly/Tillerson remain in their posts, I doubt Trump would go bonkers/looney tunes.
If they finally do resign because their POTUS is an insufferable idiot - or as our Sec. of State astutely noted, an "effin' idiot - well, better start heading to the bunker.
I slightly disagree in this case, though I absolutely agree about other cases where the Whites who committed violence clearly were attempting to coerce society thereby in a certain ideological direction, which is my definition of terrorism. The sheer blankness of Paddock, as opposed to the Oregon terrorists or Dylann Roof, is an interesting development. They were stochastic terrorists, who could figure out their marching orders without a chain of command. But Paddock just had a compulsion to slaughter a bunch of people, and apparently stalked concerts around the country to consider it before he finally went ahead and did it. That's not an ideology, or a form of coercion; there's nothing you could concede to him that would make him stop committing such acts.
However, the growth of these pathologies may be related to political issues, because of the loss of connection to a shared humanity. And the politics that choose to sever those connections in order to proclaim a Master Race must be seen as a road to many more misanthropic horrors. When regimes founded on such principles come to power, they need people who have the mental makeup to do their dirty work, regardless of their prior politics. We don't want to believe such a force of blank henchmen could exist among us, causing us to downgrade the threat of extremist rule. We should know better.
Yes!
And if I may ask, was he
a member of the NRA?
The importance here is not some psychotic drunken impotent golfer with "daddy issues" and delusions of grandeur.
What is important is the fact that virtually anyone who is a white man can accumulate an arsenal of KILLING MACHINES without drawing attention to their efforts.
Anything else is merely DIVERSION.
I suggest watching "Tony Seba: Clean Disruption of Energy and Transportation". If you have not watched Seba before, watch the first 15 minutes, you'll likely watch the rest. Even if he is only half right, the implications are profound.
link to youtube.com
The word terrorist has come to mean a person fighting against us for a cause. The word has the further advantage of allowing us to not ask about his cause or, even more dangerously, to question our own cause. Using the term “terrorist” means that there is dangerous knowledge there and to not dig further.
If on those rare occasions where a terrorist is asked "why" we hear things like "fighting against oppression", "opposing foreign military invasions", and “revenge for killing my people”. There is very little religious fanaticism: "God told me to do it". We may find that by learning the “why” we understand and become sympathetic.
It is a lovely bit of circular reasoning that allows us maintain the imperium.
Thus, Stephen Paddock is not a terrorist by today’s definition of the word.
Trump is as ignorant as sin, in fact, he may be the literal embodiment of sin, but I digress. Trump doesn't know anything about Iran and I'm sure couldn't find it on a world map, but he gets all of his misinformation from Fox and Friends and they are telling him that Iran is evil, evil I say. Someone above nailed it - this isn't about the U.S. and Iran, it is all about Israel. Iran doesn't have one nuke while Israel has hundreds. Who is the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East? We need to invade and occupy Israel, the real source of problems in the Middle East!
I guess these countries don't share Mr Trump's empathy for Appalachian coal minors.
How far the worm as turned. A killer with no obvious political agenda whatever their skin colour (like that matters) is a terrorist? the Unabomber was a terrorist, Paddock, at this stage, seems not to be. To try and conflate race, political motive and outright mentally ill (or at the least deeply disturbed) killer together distracts from meaningful dialogue. To lean heavily on the race issue only proves how weak this argument is.
Trump knows that liberal opposition will collapse as soon as he attacks and Americans lose their lives. He will wrap himself in the American flag and then go after those Americans further on the Left who will actively challenge his actions. This is how it will play out. And conservatives will cheer.
We know this scam will work, for a while. It always works. The Presidents who end wars get punished.
Nixon used the war both to get into power by promising to end it (while secretly promising Thieu the opposite), and by keeping it going so that he would get the boost in power and loyalty received by every war president. Is it a coincidence that when he finally settled the war in 1973, his routine criminality in the White House suddenly began to be viewed by the media and the public in a completely different light? As though doing it in wartime was for the national good, but doing it without a war was now suddenly about personal gain?
Under those circumstances, it's hard to deny that if George H. W. Bush had kept the war against Iraq going in 2004, he would have avoided his electoral fate. It's actually amazing that every president hasn't begun Vietnam-sized wars and kept them going until re-election time.
Except, ironically, that he seems to have been less of an ideological maniac than the modern NRA. He was a sociopath without dogma; maybe the organized sociopaths only turned to dogma because they knew they needed it to pose as an oppressed minority. Once they became a faction, they rapidly adopted all the evils of factionalism. treating their demands as a zero-sum game whose victims in every area of American life (everyone hurt by the President the NRA demanded, etc.) were as disregarded as the people Paddock slaughtered.
It seems almost inconceivable that one man’s ego can bring about the deaths of millions of people and cause mass destruction on an unimaginable scale...
I have one name for you...Bush!
The invasion of Iraq ...is still killing humans ...16 years later!
When will the rest of the world put the US on notice, sanction us, stop enabling our rush toward destruction on a continent-wide scale? The UN and NATO are so quick to intervene in petty incidents, but international organizations and spokesmen seem powerless to confront Uncle Sam going rogue.
Your first sentence is spot-on. The United Nations should be an organization that can prevent this exact thing, otherwise it's no good at all in keeping the peace in major ways. In this day, NO one man ought to have the power of life and death over the planet, or an entire country.
We must have a global government structure and complete denuclearization, or we are doomed, even if climate change doesn't do the job for us.
Everybody with any education at all should stop with this "alt-right" nonsense. This is a term that was invented to rebrand a very much older political philosophy. But we don't need to use the term they invented to confuse people. We should call them the old term.
They are Nazis. Breitbart is not "alt-right"; they are Nazis, plain and simple.
Hurricane Nate will hit Trump voters hard.
Any bets they get help way before Puerto Rico?
And Administration Climate Change Denial will continue unabated.
Smokescreen in order to mask Mr. Mueller's investigation ?
Wag-the-dog strategy against opinion polls reminding the Malvinas-Falkland fiasco ? Neither is pleasant ; moreover, both are compatible... Three heads between the chaos and us (U.S) ..... Let us have a nice weekend
The issue here is not some psychotic drunken golfer with delusions of grandeur but the fact that virtually anyone who is a white man can accumulate a f•••ing arsenal of KILLING MACHINES without drawing attention to their efforts!
As the rumble of the falls get closer and closer, maybe congress should think about a law or resolution that requires a Declaration of War from congress prior to the start of any military operations against any country that we are not already doing so. Might even mention North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela as specific no no's without the
declaration.
We've got a rabid dog for president, and it seems that there is no way to stop him from taking his next bite. Requiring a Declaration of War is not a sure fire restraint, given that many Republicans have the same inclinations as their pack leader, but maybe force a stop and think.
The notion that we, as a nation, cannot stop a cruel, incompetent, egomaniac, put in place by the electoral college, from starting wars as he sees fit, is more than scary.
As far as Iran is concerned what Trump has indicated is that he may not certify Iran's adherence to the JCPOA. Such certification is not part of the deal itself, it's an entirely US domestic requirement foisted on Obama by Congress, and Trump declining to do so would be being disrespectful to Congress since Iran's adherence has been reliably confirmed by everyone else. Failing to certify would have no immediate effect on the deal. What he would have to do is renounce it, and presumably reinstate the sanctions lifted in consequence of it's progressive implementation by Iran. That would have to pass through Congress and could indeed be done but not automatically as a result of Trump failing to certify Iran's adherence. The other signatories, including Iran, might well decide to adhere to it, in which case their task would be to find ways in which to protect their commercial entities from the the effects of US punitive actions. Considering that would be the UK, France, China, Russia, Germany, the EU itself, all the members of the G77, and probably everyone else bar Israel and a handful of ME depots, that would involve one hell of a face off and saner voices might prevail.
North Korea is another matter. Attacking Pyongyang is something, I understand, he could initiate off his own bat. Several 'experts' have postulated various scenarios consequent on such an act and none of them is in any way appealing. He wouldn't even earn a place in history because there likely wouldn't be anyone around to write it.
The first responsibility of every state is to protect its citizens against actual and potential harm. Given Uncle Sam's posture and Israel's non-stop threats (& both are nuclear armed states), why should Iran refrain from developing its own military deterrent? In talking to my relatives in Iran who are squarely in the "opposition" camp, the same people that US says are her concerns, they are criticizing the government for being naive and leaving Iran defenseless. That is the real story. When the reformist camp in Iran sides with the hardliners there, all bets are off.
Coal-fired power generation plants have no way to prevent the dangerous % of mercury in coal from reaching our atmosphere and oceans where it accumulates and kills.
Worthy of note: went to the EPA website to retrieve this reference chart - link to epa.gov and found it removed. Was forwarded to another site which was designed by MORONS and was a dead end.
To protect those who poison our planet, all incriminating EPA data has been scrubbed.
Are administration concerted efforts to suppress important facts which were previously available and are vital to understanding the safety of the the air we breathe a violation of the First Amendment and in doing so, obviates a "clear and present danger" to the citizens of our country?
"Perhaps the Republican dominated Congress will get smart . . . ."
Shirley you jest?
Best way to stay in power - START A WAR!!
Will the military force 25th Amendment action? The craven Republicans can't stop dithering about their race base.
The military has to know that we can't win in Iran, a country with far more resources than the Afghanistan quagmire.
Also, outdoing the "fire and fury" (massive war crimes) of the 1950-53 Korean War would be almost impossible, unless MacArthur's evil plan to create a radioactive dead zone was executed.
Executing that plan will put Trump and America in history like Hitler and Germany.
"General Douglas MacArthur’s plan to win was a list of targets sent to the Pentagon, requesting 34 atomic bombs to create 'a belt of radioactive cobalt across the neck of Manchuria so that there could be no land invasion of Korea from the north for at least 60 years,'”
from: link to irishtimes.com
White Supremacy is itself a cover story, but one so ancient that its followers have long since made it into a hallowed tradition whose intent can't be disputed - even as it cynically makes tactical shifts to "religious freedom" or "White separatism". We're stuck with it because it was the basis under which the inherent poverty of Southern resource-extraction economics was made viable for capitalist profits without collapsing into rebellion. That in turn makes the South a low-wage anomaly that capitalists from sea to shining sea can use to distort labor markets by threatening to move there.
And the essence of it is: we underpay everybody, but half of them get a special bonus of getting to beat and abuse and scapegoat the other half and the latter aren't allowed to fight back. It is institutionalized sadism.
For the Far Right, the restoration of that order nationwide means an financial incentive they can use to lure the capitalists into a fascist alliance. But it also connects these mostly-Northern, anti-immigrant racists with the existing pool of anti-Black and anti-Latino racists as their natural leaders.
So where do you break the chains tying this alliance together, or is it too late? One of the oldest cover stories White Supremacists have used is fealty to localized government, which has served them well when they needed to lie low, but not when they tried to create a country reaching from Norfolk to El Paso. I think you can make them choke on this secessionist contradiction. Start movements not to secede from America, but to secede from the particular Red State that oppresses its cities and minorities. The "alt-Right" leaders and corporations will try to fight that because they can do the Congressional math. But you go for their base - tell them that if their racist propaganda is true, then their states (which impose substantial tax burdens too) will be better off without the contaminated cities. Those cities create jobs from which suburban bigots cart away their paychecks to evade responsibilities in the sticks. Make them fight each other over where the borders are to be redrawn.
You and another poster make the point of the hollowness of these agreements.
The real point of them would then be to build PR legitimacy amongst those who don't know better.
And selling oneself is the first step to creating such an alternative reality.
The real agenda is to secure obedience.
Right. The US military is in many ways now depleted. It'd get eaten alive in an ouright invasion, short of a national mobilization and long build-up.
On the other hand, a couple thousand cruise missiles would make Raytheon etal very happy and at least satisfy Israel (for the moment).
Good sense here, thanks.
Mueller to Trump...."You'll find out."
It seems almost inconceivable that one man's ego can bring about the deaths of millions of people and cause mass destruction on an unimaginable scale. I believe Trumps insanity, for that's what it really is, will be used by the military, arms dealers and manufactures together with the deep state, Israel and many other invested interests to attack North Korea. They will all but exterminate the population of North Korea and lay the country to waste. They will use this as an example to middle east countries and others as an example of what they can expect if they don't capitulate. I'm quite sure that had Clinton won, something similar would be happening. Presidents don't lead, they are managed and manipulated by dark forces behind facade of government. Trumps ego is the catalyst for the conflagration to come.
Leslie, that was not the promise. The promise was that there be no NATO troops in East Germany. That is straight from Gorbachev.
I think Canada's gun license application form is the model of "well-regulated":
link to rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Requiring 2 references and a signature from former and current conjugal partners should definitely be a must!
The way things are rapidly going, "unsavoury regimes" would include the United States of America. Including the North Korean path.
The U.S. media covers the agreement as if it were bilateral (Iran and U.S.). In fact, it is an 8 country agreement that includes Russia, China, France, U.K., E.U. and Germany. If Trumps backs out of the deal, the others may well say, "Tillerson is right, you are an f....king moron," and continue to trade with Iran. If so, it would still be in Iran's best interests to continue abiding by the agreement.
Perhaps the Republican dominated Congress will get smart and at the end of the 60 days simply refuse to ratify Trump's "decertification". (I'm not holding my breath however.)
Nate heading this way,
I wonder if we will receive
paper or cotton towels?
More fiendish White-Out of Black.
The US is quickly becoming a rogue nation, a one-nation axis of evil. Even Angela Merkel said she wouldn't automatically support the US against North Korea. Too bad our mainstream media is in this bubble, where the rest of the world is irrelevant.
So far the Iranians seem not to be taking advantage of us, in our free fall away from democracy, not rising to the militarist bait, I hope that continues.
We need to start making glass etchings and stone carvings stating: "It really was the 45th President," so that future generations don't have to debate what finally caused the American iteration of empire to fatally collapse.
Anyone with a slight sense of history knows the US reneges on its promises, treaties and agreements.
Just ask the Russians (Soviet Union) about the promise not to expand NATO to the borders of Russia (by Reagan).
As dangerous and sad as all of this is, the timing is at least opportune in one regard. Senator McCain has been receiving a lot of praise recently for his vote on Healthcare. yet, he is an arch warmonger and advocate for death and killing and his vote and stance here will be a reminder of his true character again.