Donald trump. what is your take on him?

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
IT’S time to acknowledge the foreign policy disaster that American support for the Porfirio Lobo administration in Honduras has become. Ever since the June 28, 2009, coup that deposed Honduras’s democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya, the country has been descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss. That abyss is in good part the State Department’s making.

The headlines have been full of horror stories about Honduras. According to the United Nations, it now has the world’s highest murder rate, and San Pedro Sula, its second city, is more dangerous than Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a center for drug cartel violence.

Much of the press in the United States has attributed this violence solely to drug trafficking and gangs. But the coup was what threw open the doors to a huge increase in drug trafficking and violence, and it unleashed a continuing wave of state-sponsored repression.

The current government of President Lobo won power in a November 2009 election managed by the same figures who had initiated the coup. Most opposition candidates withdrew in protest, and all major international observers boycotted the election, except for the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which are financed by the United States.

President Obama quickly recognized Mr. Lobo’s victory, even when most of Latin America would not. Mr. Lobo’s government is, in fact, a child of the coup. It retains most of the military figures who perpetrated the coup, and no one has gone to jail for starting it.
Continue reading the main story

This chain of events — a coup that the United States didn’t stop, a fraudulent election that it accepted — has now allowed corruption to mushroom. The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns. At least 34 members of the opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leading human rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have been killed since Mr. Lobo took office, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The police in Tegucigalpa, the capital, are believed to have killed the son of Julieta Castellanos, the rector of the country’s biggest university, along with a friend of his, on Oct. 22, 2011. Top police officials quickly admitted their suspects were police officers, but failed to immediately detain them. When prominent figures came forward to charge that the police are riddled with death squads and drug traffickers, the most famous accuser was a former police commissioner, Alfredo Landaverde. He was assassinated on Dec. 7. Only now has the government begun to make significant arrests of police officers.

State-sponsored repression continues. According to Cofadeh, at least 43 campesino activists participating in land struggles in the Aguán Valley have been killed in the past two and a half years at the hands of the police, the military and the private security army of Miguel Facussé. Mr. Facussé is mentioned in United States Embassy cables made public by WikiLeaks as the richest man in the country, a big supporter of the post-coup regime and owner of land used to transfer cocaine.

And yet, in early October, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Lobo at the White House for leadership in a “restoration of democratic practices.” Since the coup the United States has maintained and in some areas increased military and police financing for Honduras and has been enlarging its military bases there, according to an analysis by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Congress, though, has finally begun to push back. Last May, 87 members signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling for a suspension of military and police aid to Honduras. Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to her on Nov. 28, asking whether the United States was arming a dangerous regime. And in December, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and others obtained conditions on a small portion of the 2012 police and military aid appropriated for Honduras.

Why has the State Department thrown itself behind the Lobo administration despite brutal evidence of the regime’s corruption? In part because it has caved in to the Cuban-American constituency of Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and her allies. They have been ferocious about Honduras as a first domino with which to push back against the line of center-left and leftist governments that have won elections in Latin America in the past 15 years. With its American air base, Honduras is also crucial to the United States’ military strategy in Latin America.

As Honduras plunges into a tragic abyss, it’s time to finally cut off all police and military aid. “Stop feeding the beast” is the way Ms. Castellanos, the academician whose son was killed, puts it. She, like other human rights advocates, insists that the Lobo government cannot reform itself.

The State Department is beginning to help address the situation behind the scenes. But Honduran human-rights activists, along with many of us in the United States who care about Honduras, do not believe that this administration can, or should, manage a cleanup of the very cesspool it helped to create by supporting a government that owes its power to a coup.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/in-honduras-a-mess-helped-by-the-us.html
 

Attachments

  • DG5P2I5UAAEMtNj.jpg
    DG5P2I5UAAEMtNj.jpg
    43.3 KB · Views: 1
tands said:
Wow, so much for the 'tolerant left'. There's 'fine people' on both sides of the 'jewish question' then, right John?

8)
Um no... If more people want to put words in my mouth, I need to start charging them rent.  :mad:

in fact I find the chronic anti-semitism quite distasteful (in europe, here, and especially in the middle east.), and then there is the holocaust deniers (like Iran).

The western world united to defeat the actual nazi regime back in WWII, that western army was the real antifa.  Neo-nazis are still with us but not as many and not everywhere here like the political spinners suggest. It is the nature of a free and open society that the occasional wingnuts get to express their views no matter how distasteful.

Ba'athism in the middle east is directly derivative of nazism and fascism. If you want to throw rocks at nazis go after some real ones. Saddam and Assad (still ruling Syria and now backed by Russia) were both high profile Ba'athists in the ME.

I also find the hyperbolic political exaggeration distasteful...  We seem to transition from one breathless end of the world scenario to the next, without skipping a beat.  If this amuses you have at it.

JR
 
JohnRoberts said:
Um no... If more people want to put words in my mouth, I need to start charging them rent.  :mad:

in fact I find the chronic anti-semitism quite distasteful (in europe, here, and especially in the middle east.), and then there is the holocaust deniers (like Iran).

The western world united to defeat the actual nazi regime back in WWII, that western army was the real antifa.  Neo-nazis are still with us but not as many and not everywhere here like the political spinners suggest. It is the nature of a free and open society that the occasional wingnuts get to express their views no matter how distasteful.

Ba'athism in the middle east is directly derivative of nazism and fascism. If you want to throw rocks at nazis go after some real ones. Saddam and Assad (still ruling Syria and now backed by Russia) were both high profile Ba'athists in the ME.

I also find the hyperbolic political exaggeration distasteful...  We seem to transition from one breathless end of the world scenario to the next, without skipping a beat.  If this amuses you have at it.

JR

If Iran is a holocaust denier, then the USA is a racist.

And they're both terrorists.

(... and good to know it was a fake Nazi, in a fake car, carrying out a fake terrorist attack)
 
JohnRoberts said:
I remember when calling someone a nazi meant the argument was over. Now it is the opening gambit.

Yeah, when people march with nazi symbols changing white-power anti-semitic propaganda, why would we call them Nazis. What would you call them John?

JohnRoberts said:
PS: This will not help my empathy score around here but I feel empathy for the two police officers who died while working that day (helicopter pilots). 

So again: We´re back to talking about police officers, Iran, soldiers abroad etc.... You couldn´t muster a condemnation until the second post, and your empathy extends to police officers who screwed up their job (flying a chopper safely) yet you don´t make the effort to espouse that empathy for the woman who got murdered in an act of terrorism by a Nazi.

I don´t really see how you can´t see the discrepancy we see, or how some of us find it "odd".

JohnRoberts said:
Hate is never acceptable including political hate.

I beg to differ. Not only do I reserve the right to hate Nazis and anti-semites, I think it´s a good thing. I think it´s a sign of health.

JohnRoberts said:
in fact I find the chronic anti-semitism quite distasteful (in europe, here, and especially in the middle east.), and then there is the holocaust deniers (like Iran).

The western world united to defeat the actual nazi regime back in WWII, that western army was the real antifa.  Neo-nazis are still with us but not as many and not everywhere here like the political spinners suggest. It is the nature of a free and open society that the occasional wingnuts get to express their views no matter how distasteful.

Ba'athism in the middle east is directly derivative of nazism and fascism. If you want to throw rocks at nazis go after some real ones. Saddam and Assad (still ruling Syria and now backed by Russia) were both high profile Ba'athists in the ME.

You are doing exactly what Trump is doing, which is you are diminishing the value of these domestic self-proclaimed Nazis. Doing this will allow them to grow in the shadows until they are what you say they aren´t, assuming they aren´t already (which they are).
 
For those who did´t catch what the Potus did:

- He said he followed the events very closely to get all the facts. He emphasised this.

- He said there were very good people marching peacefully the night before the terrorist attack, marching quietly.

Now, you can watch the video of that quiet peaceful march the night before, and you can hear the masses chant "Jews will not replace us", among other things.

So, you have a president of the united states of america that says that people marching with lit torches in the night shouting "Jews will not replace us" are very nice people.

So let me hear you defend that. There is no excuse here.

This is the president, the leader, that people like John elected and are now defending.
 
mattiasNYC said:
Yeah, when people march with nazi symbols changing white-power anti-semitic propaganda, why would we call them Nazis. What would you call them John?
idiots...  (did you mean to write "chanting").
So again: We´re back to talking about police officers, Iran, soldiers abroad etc.... You couldn´t muster a condemnation until the second post, and your empathy extends to police officers who screwed up their job (flying a chopper safely) yet you don´t make the effort to espouse that empathy for the woman who got murdered in an act of terrorism by a Nazi.
I regret that one woman died, and I regret that 2 police officers died. I also regret that about 100 people died from auto accidents a day. I will gladly condemn all hate crimes (again, but please don't run the PC playbook on me)

I will also continue to try to provide some perspective when others view the world through a political microscope. Under the microscope everything appears huge.
I don´t really see how you can´t see the discrepancy we see, or how some of us find it "odd".

I beg to differ. Not only do I reserve the right to hate Nazis and anti-semites, I think it´s a good thing. I think it´s a sign of health.
I meant don't hate me... and other people who are not nazis.

An unfortunate unintended consequence of all this promotion and free publicity as there will probably now be more of them. Just like the publicity around terrorism and mass shooting triggers imitation. SInce the 1930s there has been an american nazi party (ANP)  promoting hate, bigotry, and ignorance (Socialist/ Nationalist).  After the founder (Rockwell) was assassinated in 1967 the organization broke up, and since then many smaller groups have used the name (and iconography). Since the ANP philosophy has socialist roots, why is this being attached to the right? (rhetorical ....probably the populism). 
You are doing exactly what Trump is doing, which is you are diminishing the value of these domestic self-proclaimed Nazis. Doing this will allow them to grow in the shadows until they are what you say they aren´t, assuming they aren´t already (which they are).
Again stop claiming I said things I haven't. These people are disgusting, just like any and all other hate groups are disgusting.  If anything their growth recently is coming from extra media attention.

Statements from POTUS need to be more single minded and concise, as anything even slightly more nuanced will get twisted around and used to attack him with by an unfriendly media.  President Trump's Jewish son-in-law seems inconsistent with his imaginary nazi sympathies.

I wish Trump would just shut up and get back to work (or vacation, or whatever).  He is not going to win this one on twitter or in social media.  Living in the deep south for a few decades I think I understand one point he was trying to make. There are good people who do not feel all southern culture and iconography is racist and should be summarily destroyed. This is a slippery slope when we start to apply modern mores to erase past history. Maybe place some new plaques under these old statues adding contemporary statements. Some of these confederate generals were highly honored military commanders for the US before the civil war.  When I first moved south 3 decades ago some yankee friends joked that the south was still arguing over the civil war. Some truth to that.

Several of our country's founders were slave owners and that doesn't make them, or the constitution they wrote bad. Even Plato's utopia had slaves, and slavery is still active today around the world. I can be angry about that, we should work to wipe that out (like human trafficking here in the US and more conventional slavery elsewhere).


JR
 
https://twitter.com/sonaralee/status/896482062953312262

https://twitter.com/FeministaJones/status/897826797206818817

https://twitter.com/tlnx_/status/897767306159370240
 
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-sheer-number-of-democrats-running-for-congress-is-a-good-sign-for-the-party/

https://twitter.com/nickgourevitch/status/898154522840883200
 

Attachments

  • masket-recruit-1.png
    masket-recruit-1.png
    76.3 KB · Views: 8
Colombia, Argentina and Chile told Pence they wouldn’t support U.S. military intervention against Venezuela during his Latin American tour.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has cut short his trip to Panama, the final visit of his diplomatic tour across Latin America, after attempting to seek regional support on action against Venezuela.

The White House claimed he cut his trip short in order to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump about North Korea, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Pence was scheduled to return on Friday afternoon, but he will now return on Thursday afternoon, just hours after landing in Panama City. The politician will meet Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and give a speech at the Panama Canal before returning to Washington.

more

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Pence-Cuts-Panama-Trip-Short-After-Seeking-to-Isolate-Venezuela-20170817-0018.html

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/multimedia/Venezuelans-Reject-Imperialism-and-Donald-Trump-20170814-0017.html
 
hodad said:
So this is waaaaaay up thread, but....
JR says the causes of the Civil War were complicated, and there's some truth to that, but it was primarily about slavery.  If you go back to original CSA documents, you will find that stated quite clearly.  And even if the perpetuation of slavery was not the entire reason for secession and war, it was a huge part of it, and you just can't get around it--the Confederacy wanted to continue enslaving black people.  And that is not defensible. 

It's been 152 years since the war ended.  It's time for folks to get over this notion of lionizing men who were traitors to the Union, and who fought to keep other human beings enslaved.  And I say this as a white Southerner whose family has been here since at least the 1700's, whose great-great grandfather fought for the Confederacy.  This is not what the South of the 21st century needs, and this backwards-thinking crap should not be condoned or glorified.

And if I were a black Southerner who faced these monuments on a daily basis, monuments that glorified men who fought to keep my people enslaved--well, I sure wouldn't be sorry to see them go.
+1
 
Quote from: hodad on August 15, 2017, 07:58:01 PM

    So this is waaaaaay up thread, but....
    JR says the causes of the Civil War were complicated, and there's some truth to that, but it was primarily about slavery.

And the reason it was about the 'economy' was that using slaves as a business workforce gives a 'competitive' advantage. Non slave businesses in the north would not be able to compete with products of business in the slavery south.  Capitalism cares not about morality.

The whole states rights / economic reasons were BS  -  it was about proponents of abhorant, immoral behavior wanting to keep it up.

There's about half a page of discussion in the last 5 pages of spam, shill postings of tands.
Anyone else notice how he starts spamming long irrelevant, off topic links to blow out actual discussions of topics pertaining to the thread title?
 
What about the Morrill tariff enacted in 1861?
What about northern states that never left the union which were slave states?
What about the 2860 census that listed half a million slaves in the north?
What about the emancipation proclamation and how it did not free northern slaves?
What about Lincoln who would have left slavery alone had the union been preserved?
What about the control in d.c.  And how the north wanted to keep it?
There are a lot of questions and answer that all add up to the war between the states. There is not one cause, despite what history teaches now days.  It's not so cut and dried.
 
Thanks to all this lately, I now know that the KKK salute looks very similar to the heil hitler, except the four fingers are slightly apart, and the thumb is bent under.
 
dmp said:
There's about half a page of discussion in the last 5 pages of spam, shill postings of tands.
Anyone else notice how he starts spamming long irrelevant, off topic links to blow out actual discussions of topics pertaining to the thread title?

Lmao. The deep state's plans for Venezuela are directly related to the thread title, as he would be the one to effect them. You learnt something about the world today, dmp.
 
pucho812 said:
What about the Morrill tariff enacted in 1861?
What about northern states that never left the union which were slave states?
What about the 2860 census that listed half a million slaves in the north?
What about the emancipation proclamation and how it did not free northern slaves?
What about Lincoln who would have left slavery alone had the union been preserved?
What about the control in d.c.  And how the north wanted to keep it?
There are a lot of questions and answer that all add up to the war between the states. There is not one cause, despite what history teaches now days.  It's not so cut and dried.
I suggest a quick read of the following Wikipedia entry.
 
Apparently there's a racist rally in washington dc on the same day as a large insane clown posse massing of some kind.

Guy primaring Pelosi.

'I am told those metal clowns are fierce anti-racists. Sounds like the right side.'

;D

https://twitter.com/Jaffe4Congress/status/898419633983705088
 
Back
Top