Sorry, FT. Not sure what “short term vs long term” is referring to?
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It’s pretty difficult to win anything in politics without someone on your side.
You have an excellent question there. If I were to go into politics to save anything, would we then know that I’m a crook or would I ask for a special exemption? Fact is, no one in middle class (like me) or lower could ever win a political race. Name anyone with an average or above average net worth who has ever become president in these United States. One might argue then that these people should win BECAUSE they are financially smart. This is not as straight forward as it sounds. I crawled my behind from extreme poverty to middle class without anyone’s help. You can’t invest to get rich if you don’t have two pennies to rub together. I am an example of someone who manages finances well and makes good decisions but could NEVER get into the political race as I do not run with the affluent crowd, I have no ins, am too altruistic, am a woman and I have a slight stutter.
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First, I want to say that I appreciate your relatively mature style of debate. These are the crucial conversations that being missed by key figureheads but they need to be had. Exchanging of ideas from both sides without mudslinging and name-calling is where we can both learn from each other and reach a better understanding of what’s right for all of us.
I agree with you on some of the things you said. Some of those things, my jury is still out. I’m not up on the politics of the UK or South Africa so I will earnestly investigate your points as time permits. What I do want to point out here though is that what you are describing is the very black and white nature of the extremist beliefs of the two major party’s system. The grays are really where the best answers lay and is why I say that they operate as a yin and yang. If either of them existed independently to an extreme, we would not be in a good place.
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That’s for sure. You have to be perseverant and consistently work very hard and with high quality to make a decent profit in a small business.
Can you explain the difference, Lamarth, between tactic and strategy?
I don’t know what Lamarth was saying but generally a tactic is a short term thing. In a military war, you would use a tactic as part of one battle and you may use that tactic multiple times. A strategy is an overarching plan for the war.
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Allan you are right, which is why it is so depressing where Trump uses his mouth before engaging his brain. He has made comments where he feels entitled to conduct his campaign as he sees fit, and in my opinion, his mistakes are damaging his chances. In that light, he thinks more of himself than the country.
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Yes. İ see. Thank you.
The exact point Lamarth was making about “going where you’re treated best” was that it may be a good tactic but was not a good strategy.
You feel the same?
Oh man! İ loved George Carlin.
As a young liberal-leaning person back in the day, i listened to him and realized maybe i wasn’t the liberal i thought i was.
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Staying alive is usually a sound decision. In my 2nd paragraph, I was attempting to point out that an agent with tactics but no strategy may easily be cornered and left with only disastrous choices.
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I’ve heard in an extreme situation people close ranks and only trust people that look and think like them.
So you would have to hope that the extreme situation doesn’t hit where you move to. Maybe. Who knows?
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Sounds like a game of chess, which i admit to not having a very good sense of strategy for playing.
Which i think makes your point 
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Frankly, FT, I do not expect to survive that kind of extreme situation. Especially not here in Türkiye. We are old and both somewhat frail and relatively wealthy compared to the population. We would probably be among the first taken out.
İn the meantime, we live as best we can in one of the biggest cities in the world. Much cheaper for us than living in either UK or US and we think, better health services
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I don’t think a lot of people get this. When people talk about going overseas to escape a collapse (or whatever) they aren’t taking into account what happens to human behaviour in times of crisis.
Somewhere where they are “other” is fine in good times. In bad times, people will probably sell them things for rip off prices till their money runs out, then (at an extreme) kill them and take whatever stuff is left - or just exclude them.
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That’s my problem. People who look like me I can find, although they’re getting displaced at breathtaking speed. People who think like me, though… I don’t find that much IRL. I find some such people here, but I can’t move here.
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It’s important to remember that this quote encapsulates the “Elite” globalist mindset that has been in place since before the Fed was established “Every American will be forced to register or suffer not being able to work and earn a living. They will be our chattel , and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through taxation, secured by their pledges. They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser”
But I do agree that to have a functioning society requires some amount of “Socialism” it’s just that we’re a barely functional society and have lived under dictate for over a 100 years & the wealth of the nation in every form has been squandered. The overall tax burden can be crippling & I’m of the opinion that we are all peons/indentured servants & the 13th Amendment has been merely meaningless words. “Considering these components, the total cumulative tax burden on an American citizen, including sales and excise taxes, is estimated to be around 18-20% of personal income” feels higher.
That intro quote totally captures the Ponzi Schemes that is the Student Loan fiasco.
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LULZ to the extreme. What passes for ‘reason’ in some folks remains to be undecipherable
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I presume you’re replying to me - in which case, thank you for the compliment.
I will wear my partisanship on my sleeve - at this point, I see Communists everywhere. I’m even a bit salty about having Labor Day off! I would ask you, what it means to be an extremist, because I would say that anyone who has strong convictions is an extremist… and that’s not inherently bad.
As far as extremists in two major parties, I think there’s a lot of hidden values here. The GOP and DNC were never really two parties, they were coalition parties. The GOP consists / consisted of evangelicals, libertarians, NeoCons (aka fabian socialists of a particular flavor), and nationalists. All of these factions are extremists in their area. The DNC consisted of greens, progressives, NeoLibs (aka fabian socialists of a particular flavor), labor unions, and classical liberals, all of whom are extremists in THEIR area. Feel free to throw some more groups that they would pander to, but as a general overview I think it’s suitable. I think this is an inherent feature of our form of government, that it will create coalitions of factions, and usually those coalitions coalesce into two parties. I’m not sure why - maybe because votes fall into yes/no, or maybe because things fall into pro-establishment (status quo) / anti-establishment (reform) blocs. You can see this clearly in the UK, where the Tories and Labor are both pro-establishment and any attempt at reform gets roundly crushed (Brexit still has only happened in name only, and no immigration reform either. Reform UK won something like 20% of the votes in the last election, and is getting something like 3% of the seats). It happens in Germany, where you have The Establishment and AfD, and all the parties unite to prevent the AfD from having any power.
So back to the US, the Neocons and the Neoliberals appear to have been in the driver’s seat of their particular coalitions since, well, at least Reagan’s 2nd term. As the United States government becomes more and more centralized, corrupt, uh, BROKE, it seems like it became harder to keep the leftwing coalition together. The DNC has happily shown the liberals and labor unions the door, and the greens still get token lip service, but otherwise are ignored. I THINK what we’re seeing is a battle between progressives and neoliberals. “Biden” was a useful puppet where they both could get what they want. - the point being the DNC has become more extreme as it has abandoned a large portion of its bloc, and the remaining portion is gung-ho for socialist revolution. The GOP still has neocons, but now with labor unions, evangelicals, nationalists, liberals, and libertarians in the tent. This can’t last, and is mostly united by their fear of the DNC (except for the neocons who love the DNC but have to pretend otherwise on TV).
If this analysis is correct, it’s not surprising you’re getting a weird impression from the anti-DNC coalition. There are 6 radically different factions in the anti-DNC coalition.
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