Some others who might agree, Greg. (I think I'm buying a subscription.)

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/1...out-trump.html

Trump not only added the 'T' to 'rump' but also the 'T' to 'reason.' Ergo, he thinks with his arse and fills the land with his noxious gases.

The question is, will the Senators grow some spine soon and start the inevitable independent investigation?

Good article, James.

***

To all and sundry,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_19

Russia is stepping up their military presence. I'm sorry, maybe I'm paranoid, but I see a Trump administration in disarray, unraveling, and Putin who knows the jig is up.

Defamation? What are you talking about. Who here has demonstrated a need for a healthy reminder of what the word means?

Remember Bengazi? And emails? My God. If you tend to be conservative, and said, what the hell, my pastor said Hillary was the anti-Christ, so I'll vote Trump. Run.

Now some music.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=js_0RW2d0u4#

The latest tweet from the Associated Press:

Sounds like Nixon circa 1973, does it not?

...is the communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of an individual person, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation.[1] - from Wikipedia.

Look, I'm no supporter of Trump, in fact I've said a few times (here and elsewhere), that it looks like he may be headed for impeachment, and that I'll be celebrating with the rest if that happens.

But I'm keen on keeping a level head. There have been many exaggerations and premature comparisons to Hitler, as well as (in another thread), Trump being labeled a 'rapist'. Since no proof that he's a rapist has come to light, that's awfully close to defamation, though the charge might not be false (though I suspect it is).

Anyway, I'll delete that link.

I have an in-depth understanding of the law of defamation, William, which is why I was a bit confused at your invoking it to characterize criticism of the president of the United States. I think he's a lot like Hitler. Now that I've said it, do you honestly think I'm going to be held liable for damages for defaming him? Now Hitler, on the other hand, might have a case if he weren't dead!

Seriously, I don't think it's a good practice to wait until after Trump carries out his own holocaust before daring to use the H-word. I find the thinking expressed here by a Yale professor to be fairly compelling.

Just sharing Jelani Cobb's essay about Milo Y in the New Yorker.

Greg

Roger/Bob, I have no doubts about your understanding of what defamation is. I put the link there as a reminder to any and all (including yours truly!) about the uselessness and potential harmfulness of throwing ad-homs around. I did it when I used the word "loony" a few times.

Guilty!

See?

It's a reminder, a cautionary gesture. Or I should say was, since I deleted the link out of my ongoing need to be as kind as possible.

No, of course you won't be held liable for comparing Trump to Hitler! I didn't say that you would, or anyone else. Did anyone notice my long explanation to Andrew, et al, about degrees of lies or falsehoods? Probably not.

Before I submit this post, let me repeat myself:

Comparisons of Trump to Hitler are premature, to say the least.

The key word is premature. I didn't say they were false.

***

And where's everyone's contributions to Ralph's (RCL's) thread in Drills & Amusements?

Read the article I linked to. I don't think it's at all premature to take note of the history of Hitler's rise to power and to note troubling parallels in the rise of Trump. It's better to be premature than too late, in any event. If we insist that Hitler was a unique, non-replicable historical phenomenon and therefore do not worry about it happening again, we are committing a grave error. Again, read the article. I am certainly not claiming it is a certainty that Trump can or will succeed in become the next Hitler, but I am utterly convinced that he would if he could and that we should not let delicacy or denial keep us from the sort of vigilance that cannot be maintained if we exclude that possibility.

Roger, I agree with you. Let's all watch, and be on guard, very closely.

I read the article you linked to just now, and I decided to isolate these two bits just so you know I did read it, and because I think they're important:

The second quote agrees with what I've said in other threads. Racists feel that they now have free rein to come into the open. I have co-workers and even family members who are throwing the N word around as if it's funny, the trendy thing to do. I have to be careful at work because my department supervisor is an outspoken Trump supporter, while my executive director is a strong "Oregon/Washington State liberal" (her words). If I lose my job due to pissing the wrong person off, I'm toast.

Back to Hitler. Bear in mind, Mein Kampf was published in 1925, long before his rise to power. In that book - which I haven't read because I refuse to read it - Hitler wrote, according to historian Ian Kershaw:

When I say "premature", I mean just that. I don't mean, "incorrect", or anything else. Note the word, "exterminated". Trump has not used this kind of language.

Also, it seems to me that Hitler was far more intelligent than Trump. I might be wrong, but Trump seems a wee tad dim, if I may say so gently. Hitler wasn't dim, unfortunately for millions of people. Evil requires intelligence. It requires intellection, calculation, premeditation, and discipline. Stupidity and ignorance will get in the way of any wanna-be tyrant eventually, at least in the US. Hopefully! I pray I'm right. I could be wrong.

"Mine is the right to be wrong" - Ian Anderson, from "A Passion Play".

I don't want to sound isolationist. I know how precarious the situation is. I've jokingly (sort of) referred to the US as Rome in many posts. I believe we are vulnerable for lots of reasons. One being the too-comfy, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking attitude so many of us Romans...er...I mean Americans have. Another is the silly idea that "it can't happen here."

The Romans thought the same thing.

Have you read the New Yorker article Gregory P linked to? It's a good one. I'll add a quote from that:

"Inept rogues" about sums up my feelings, though I should add, Jelani Cobb and I disagree on certain things.

More later.

Fair enough, but Trump's not being as smart as Hitler hardly puts me at my ease. Trump was smart enough to get elected president, after all, so I think he passes the minimum threshold of intelligence to become a dictator as well. There are all kinds of intelligence -- intellectual, emotional, and dare I say, demagogic. Trump's DIQ is certainly in the genius range.

Just to lighten the mood, and for a bit of jocularity:

I looked up DIQ, and one of the matches was this,

http://www.abcunderwear.com/diq-bikini.html

^ DO NOT click this link— unless you want to see something that may be offensive, and/or cause major penis envy! :D

So before the protest the University was not going to prevent him from speaking despite his having outed a student in the past and threats to do so again. After the protest he didn't get the platform at Berkeley and it is unlikely they will double down and have him in the future.

Where is the inept part? Partly successful, partly not. Training for future. Imperfect but not inept.

What do you think it looks like to oppose fascism once it has a foothold when the police are more likely than not to be sympathetic to the brown shirts and the general populace is often too busy watching netflix to be bothered? Tea parties and a round of Partisan Chutes and Ladders?

Andrew,

To use Cobb's word, the rioters were "inept" because, as Cobb explained in the article, it only served to draw more attention to Milo, which is exactly what Milo wants. They gave him the very thing he desires the most: more exposure, more time in the limelight, an extra few seconds to his allotted 15 minutes.

My personal objection has been outed several times: smashing things and starting fires (arson - a capital crime) puts innocent people in harm's way.

To repeat: there IS a time for violent retaliation to tyranny, but we are not at that point.

Yet.

Can I ask a question? Do you think it's okay for transgender males to use women's bathrooms? Or vice versa?

I read this article, but don't yet know what kind of spin has been put on it, so I'm still a wee tad in the misty area.

Milo said this:

He goes on to make a remark that doesn't further his cause in the least. He seems to like taking one step forward and two steps back, and by that I mean: When you need to be plain and serious, do it, and save the chuckles and jokes for another context, another time (ie, in private!).

I am sorry for this UW-Milwaukee student Milo drew worldwide attention to. I hope he will be safe. He's the hapless "pawn outplayed by a dominating queen," to use an Elton John (via Bernie Taupin) quote that's been rattling around in my head for weeks.

Milo seems to be affluent, prideful, boastful, and reckless. He's smart enough to know that he's a major target himself, not just for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but for an actual bullet. Maybe he wants to die young and handsome, like James Dean. I'd rather die old and ugly.

Bill,

I'm using your post as a jumping off point. I'm not reading every word in this thread. Therefore...
Of course, we are reading Mein Kampf in the English translation. I would be curious to see if the word "exterminated" is not ex post facto the Holocaust. I think Trump's language about torture is exactly the kind of language used by Hitler because it resonates with an entire nation to brutalize "the other" for the sake of national security. Whipping up a populace to accept such brutality is the process toward "extermination." The most horrifying thing about torture is that somewhere in America your neighbor is going to work ripping the eyes out of another human being. The banality of evil is the most dangerous. Donald Trump couldn't be more banal. Read this article from last August.

Greg

Just adding in to say that I was looking for a credible source that reported on Trump at some point in the campaign talking about bombing some country into oblivion. Am I wrong about that?

Got the article bookmarked, Gregory.

Will respond in several hours, when I return from work.

I'm trying to stay out of this thread as much as possible, but I'd like to remind Americans of all political persuasions that the week of February 18-26 is the first recess of the 115th Congress. Your elected representatives are supposed to be holding local town hall meetings and otherwise making themselves available to their constituents, if you have something to say to them on a particular issue.

Gregory P,

The first thing that jumps out at me in the article is at the very beginning, when the author is saying, not just intimating, but directly stating, that Trump was making "a clear provocation to commit murder, however he and his handlers may try to spin it."

This is exactly the kind of clear exaggeration that almost certainly falls into the defamation category, if you ask me, though I'm not in the legal profession.

- from the article Gregory linked to.

First of all, "Second Amendment people" does not refer only to people who own guns, and it certainly doesn't strictly refer to nutters who would assassinate a presidential candidate! This is hysterical.

I don't own a gun, and in fact can't stand guns, but I firmly believe in the Second Amendment and in the right of a citizen to bear arms for personal protection. This is not to say I don't believe in "gun control". I strongly believe in background checks, and I do think it's far too easy for a person to obtain a firearm, in my gun-happy state especially.

Anyway, I don't think this thread should get bogged down in too many side issues, so that's all I'll say about that, except to reiterate that it's hysterical to take Trump's remarks and spin them into an incitement for assassination.

As for torture. Before I say anything else, yes, Trump certainly is no politician and he sounds more like a high school soccer coach than a US president. Also, I believe I've mentioned how I feel about torture in this thread, or perhaps it was in private with Charlie, I honestly can't remember. I don't advocate torture for any reason. I would argue for tough measures in high pressure situations where information necessary to national security can be gathered. I don't work in that area. I've got it easy, and I don't lay my very life on the line on a daily basis; and far be it for me to dictate what military and government personnel can or can't do in order to keep my tender little behind safe. That being said, I've seen photos and read articles that made my skin crawl, but this kind of thing has been going on for a long time, long before Trump took office.

Back to the comparisons to Hitler. It seems to me that Trump is aggressively interested in minimizing immigration, in sealing the borders, in being isolationist and self-contained as a national interest. Hitler had no compunction when it came to invading other nations and targeting innocents for systematic slaughter (this isn't to say that Trump won't get around to stretching his newfound military muscle - we shall see).

There is a huge difference between wanting to keep people away and wanting to methodically wipe certain races or types of people off the map. Hitler was obsessed with eugenics and what he dreamed of as the perfectibility of the human race. He wanted to rid the world of those pesky Jews, but he also had it in for people with disabilities, deformities, retardation, mental problems, what have you. Too bad he couldn't identify his own sickness in the process. He also didn't care for black people. Remember his shame when Jesse Owens beat his precious blonde supermen in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I still like to watch that film just to see the disgruntled and embarrassed look on his silly little face.

But I've gone on too much, and I'm getting a bit exhausted trying to keep up a defense of someone I don't even like.

My main point is that I feel the comparisons to Hitler are premature. Who knows, in a few weeks, a few months, I may be singing a different tune. He does seem to want to get aggressive with foreign policy. But then again, America has been at war for a very long time, long before Trump was anywhere near the political scene.

This just in...

PRESS CONFERENCE
By Brian Bilston

searching
inside his cranium

trying to find
a brain to rack,

he found the word
"uranium"

and launched
an unclear attack

Bill: “My main point is that I feel the comparisons to Hitler are premature. Who knows, in a few weeks, a few months, I may be singing a different tune.”

Start warming up you singing voice… This survey/questionnaire (it's not a legit survey) is being circulated to the Trump database:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DBLJ9W3

The comparisons are legitimate. It’s Trump who must answer to the comparisons, to be held accountable for his words and actions.

Go to NYT online and answer survey. They will publish their own results on Sunday.

That's something I think most of us can agree on, Bill. In discussions like this I'd like to see Occum's razor come out a bit more. Sounds menacing doesn't it? Just add music and it's more like West Side Story. Ha!

Greg

My feeling is that it is not especially helpful to compare Trump to Hitler. It's more useful to look at what authoritarian governments and fledgling autocracies in general do, which Hitler himself exemplifies and takes to its limit. If we think too much on Hitler specifically, we risk missing what the signs of the present are indicating. For instance, even the period between the World Wars didn't have so many countries with a rapidly rising far right. Then again, they weren't contending with globalization like we are. Etc. etc. There are lots of differences, and authoritarian government in our time has a different look to that of the 1930s. In the long run, because of nukes, environmental crises, and other factors, our version might be less egregious but much more lethal.

Where's the "Like" button?

Andrew F,

Reminds me of Dante's character who uses his 'arse' to blow the trumpet. What the hell was his name? I destroyed my poem Contra Inferno (which you critiqued on Metrical, and didn't like), which talked about that section, but I wish like hell I hadn't.

Speaking of trumpets! Maybe Trump is our last president? Final trump?

***

Gregory P,

Occum's

Was that a typo, or am I missing the joke?

Hey Bill (or do you prefer William?), I didn’t mean to trash that poem outright. You should resuscitate it.

Barbariccia, "Curly Beard," and their boss's name is Malacoda, "Evil Tail," or "Evil Rump" in this case.

The comparison is apt. A defining feature of Dante’s hell is that it has lost "il ben de l’intelletto," the good of the intellect. The Inferno is a pig-pile of social chaos, a city that has lost its way because people have ditched the understanding they might measure their speech and actions by.

The Administration’s trashing of the media is a way to crush independent thought--the good of the intellect. So is their budget proposal’s plan to cut the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AmeriCorps, and the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities.

Trump is the anti-intellectual's anti-intellectual.

Like William C. Williams’s introduction to Ginsberg’s Howl says, "Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell."

Thanks, Andrew.

You can call me Bill. There used to be a slew of Bills about, Lantry, Carpenter, and others. Now there are less Bills.

Thanks, yes, that's the guy!

Alas, I cannot resuscitate the poem since I deleted it from my blog, and also from my personal files, and there is no hard copy. The poem has vanished into the ether. It was posted on Metrical, perhaps a year or so ago, in two versions, but I imagine that when they prune those forums, they prune into oblivion. ?

It wasn't your critique that made me destroy the poem, but my fear that I was treading on sacred ground.

Ah, well.

Evil Rump. That will go into a poem of mine soon.

And, thanks to Andrew, I'll try cooking up something that begins with
"He is the very model of an anti-intellectual".

Wiliam, try searching the data base for all your past posts, and you may find your lost poem. Or, do a search using a distinctive keyword that you used in it. Somehow, some pretty old stuff escapes the pruning process.

Ah, Douglas, I smell G&S. Should cook beautifully!

The angry rhetoric of politicians and commentators with large followings kills. Churchgoers George Tiller and those Dylan Roof killed are likely among its victims. That there can never be proof that the words of anyone in particular caused a nut to kill someone makes it hard to criticize this dangerous speech and easy to criticize those who try to do so.

Yep, typo. Actually, there is a town in Connecticut called Occum not far from where I live. So there you go.

Certainly! You'll get no argument from me about that.^

But it doesn't make what I wrote untrue.

Trump wasn't inciting someone to commit assassination any more than Ozzy Osborne caused anyone to commit suicide, or Frank Zappa, for that matter, with his song "Suicide Chump":

Well go on and get it over with then,
find you a bridge and take a jump.
But you better get it right the first time,
'cause nothin's worse than a suicide chump.

All I said was that the author of the article stretched the truth and exaggerated, not that Trump's mutterings are not beneath his office and responsibility.

The sort of political currency Trump has been printing and the economy of The Enemy it empowers cannot be easily disconnected from responsibility for the environment that breeds Roof-isms. This is a basic historically verifiable fact. The sort of violence that these outliers have picked up is exactly what these ideas do. It is their specialty. That these fellows are canary in the coal mine early bird specials doesn't form an alibi.

The Zappa defense is silly. Musicians have never used the mechanisms of constructed myths of internal danger, lost greatness, and the monopolization of truth in their own person to kill millions. Authoritarian figures have.

Trump's Agenda this coming week:

1. discredit judicial branch
2. discredit intelligence community
3. discredit fourth estate
4. Throw rally to whip up support from the masses.

Making America Great Again one insult at a time.

My stance is unchanged.

You once said I wasn't responding to what you were actually saying. I kind of feel the same way, not just in reference to you, Andrew.

What have I actually said in my posts? I've been urging people to remain objective, to keep a cool head, and to keep watch. I've also said Trump will probably be impeached. I've also said I don't support him, and that I'd be celebrating along with everyone else if he IS impeached. I've also said I don't like him. I've also insulted him quite a few times.

Conversation cited by the author of the article in question was about gun control and the Second Amendment:

I've bolded the Trump bits. Notice that the conversation was in reference to the Second Amendment. Notice he says Hillary wants to abolish the Second Amendment, etc. Now that may or may not be true, but it doesn't matter insofar as the point I was making, which is simple: the author of the article is being nothing short of hysterical in stating, as he does at the top of the article, that Trump is making a "clear provocation to commit murder." (I underlined that bit in the quote).

No, no he wasn't.

Most likely he was suggesting that people who spend their time lobbying for and protecting their second amendment right will ratchet up their efforts, being as Hillary (in his mind, anyway) was out to abolish that right.

You can say that some nutter out there with an itchy finger might take those words as an incitement to kill Hillary—that I agree with, but it doesn't mean that Trump was literally trying to get someone to kill her. If he wanted to do that, he could have done so behind the scenes, and who the hell knows, maybe he did! But I doubt it, since his greatest yen was to defeat her and win the election.

Please pay attention to what I'm actually writing. YES, his unpremeditated mutterings are beneath his office and his responsibility. That's the second time I'll say that, but being an unguarded pep-talking coach of a POTUS does not mean he's out to kill millions. He's a plain-talking business man who could probably sell candles in hell, but he's no Hitler. He hasn't got the brains (or the sheer hatred and demented passion) for it.

He'll be ousted soon enough.

He was hinting, in his cruel and stupid and unclear way, that somebody should shoot Hillary.

I've stopped posting on this thread because it's deteriorated into Conversations with William. But every once in a while I can't ignore something.

E vero, Michael!

Nice of you to drop by, in your usual cruel and stupid and unclear way, Michael.

Sorry, couldn't resist. You're not stupid or cruel, though you do like to be sideways and indirect.

I'll be by later to respond more fully. Gotta go to work.

Where's everyone's contributions to Ralph's Black History Month thread?

Alright, Michael, I'll give in. Maybe you're right.

But if a man running for POTUS is dumb enough to drop a hint that somebody ought to shoot his running mate, what are the chances that he'll last long enough as President to initiate an actual fascist state? I say his chances are mighty slim. You gotta have something on the ball to carry that kind of nuttiness all the way through. And/or, you need a silver-tongued demon like Goebbels as your right hand man. Has he got someone like that in his entourage? What do I know, maybe he does. We'll see.

What I really think is that if he really wanted her offed, he could have had it done. What are the odds that a billionaire couldn't get that done? Much more likely is that he wanted, most of all, to beat Hillary in the election. He seems like the kind of knuckle-dragger that would like nothing better than to defeat a woman in a race for the presidency, especially the wife of a former president. This was like a blown up version of Billie Jean King and Bobbie Riggs, only this time the piggy won.

But I could be wrong.

Nigel, sorry, I'm from Arizona. Us folk don't unnerstand none of that foriner talk, reckin.

Andrew, sorry this deteriorated into Conversations with William. Just remember, I'm not defending a man so much as defending my principles. I'll try and butt out.

But seriously, all that venom vented in the News of the Day threads, and virtually no-one has anything to contribute to Ralph's Black History Month thread? So far just Gregory, Julie, and I have added something. That's just baffling and sad. Is it because I've tried to get y'all to add something that you resist? Well that's even more baffling. Can't be. Something is rotten in Denmark.

You don't need to post your own poem, you can post a favorite poem by a black poet. Ralph has already said he didn't see any problem with that, and it would be in the spirit of the thread.

Only 10 days left.