Almost anyone who has heard of Machiavelli associates him with the sly deceit supposedly recommended in The Prince. It is a grievously erroneous way to think of Machiavelli, whose far more important book was The Discourses on Livy, a multi-volume work some ten times the length of The Prince.
President Trump Threatens to Send U.S. Troops to Mexico to Take Care of 'Bad Hombres'
Source: Time/Associated Press
President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop "bad hombres down there" unless the Mexican military does more to control them itself, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.
Yes we know DT is bad but his gang is worse, if that can be possible. Steve Bannon, anti-semitic rabble rouser, sets the tone for the 4th Reich. (H/T to MsGrin)
“fond of promoting rivalries among subordinates, wary of delegating major decisions, scornful of convention and fiercely insistent on a culture of loyalty around him.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/21/selectivity-in-trashing-trump/
Investigative reporter Robert Parry, the author of this article, broke many of the Iran-Contra stories. He says there's good reason to denounce Trump's crude language, position on climate change, and if he follows Reagan and Bush's failed economic policies. However, he also mentions moving among protesters at the inauguration, and seeing signs denouncing Trump's interest in working peacefully with Putin. In other words, the warmongers were part of the crowd protesting him, too. And now Silicon Valley is up in arms and funding immigration protests (over H1B visas - they want to keep bringing in cheaper foreign IT workers).
But the current danger for Democrats and progressives is that – by bashing everything that Trump says and does – they will further alienate the white working-class voters who became his base and will push away anti-war activists.
If you are only interested in Team Blue Opposing Trump, well, we all know the web site for that.
But if you want to go outside of the echo chamber and understand how Trump's approval ratings are on the rise, then you cannot ignore what The Donald is getting right.
Obama Killed a 16-Year-Old American in Yemen. Trump Just Killed His 8-Year-Old Sister. Glenn Greenwald, 01/30/2017
Read about Steve Bannon: He Runs America Now
He says he wants to bring the system down and replace it with an economic system related to jobs and rebuilding the infrastructure. Sounds a bit like Bernie to me.
NYT developing
A federal judge in Brooklyn issued an emergency stay of part of President Trump’s executive order on immigration, ruling that sending refugees and others back would cause “irreparable harm.”
This is a heartbreaking and terrifying article. I hope you'll read the whole thing. The essayist writes very well, about things that are foreign to many of us. He is a retired social worker now living in the rural south and working on a PhD.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/01/james-f-on-hatred-in-our-divided-...
I, too, am worried by our descent into prewar hatred. I had a friend from Dubrovnik in the’80s. She was a typical Yugoslav – half Croatian, quarter Serbian, and a quarter Russian. She was full of hope, smart, pretty, and heartbreakingly naïve. If she survived the war, I’m pretty sure my friend lost what made her a beautiful human being. She haunts me. Civil wars seem implausible until they start and then they follow the devil’s logic. People like my friend tend to die in them or turn into something less than they were in order to survive.
