Caltrops - Balance of Power





	[quote name="exhausted but hopeful"][quote name="laudablepuss"]Your border analysis is as backward as it's possible to be. His claims about a crisis were regarding an "invasion" of immigrants. That's not the same thing as stuffing them into rooms until there's no room to move?[/quote] This isn’t...entirely accurate. But, I understand the confusion, because it was certainly framed that way by...some political party or other. Can’t for the life of me remember which one, though. And then, of course, it was repeated ad nauseum by...some media outlets. Again, the names slip my mind. :( Trump was talking about our inability to accommodate such a large influx of people while Brian Stelter and others in the media poo-poohed it as a nothingburger (after all, the caravan was still south of the Mexican border—Guatemala, I think?). Then lots more talking happened, and then, eventually, he characterized it as an invasion. I would have thought a career wheeler & dealer would be more diplomatic, but his characterization...isn’t entirely without justification. [quote name="laudablepuss"]For the second part: help me out. What did he actually say? I think there are youtubes right, it was on the TV? [/quote] It was. It’s so easy to debunk that its enduring nature has really bolstered the whole “fake news” narrative. I’m not sure how much you remember (it was 2017) so I’ll include a synopsis, but please, go watch the conference/read the transcript for yourself. It was at a rally/protest while they were taking down Confederate statues in Charlottesville. One side was protesting the removal of historical monuments, the other was endorsing it. Of course, both sides drew diverse groups who nominally supported either removal or preservation; neo-Nazis showed up to protest the removal, Antifa showed up to counter-protest, violence ensued. A young woman was run over and killed by a member of the neo-Nazi subgroup. Local police were, for whatever reason, unprepared for the level/size/volatility of demonstration that took place. The press conference was a mess; the press were antagonistic, Trump was antagonistic. Reports were, naturally, focused on the more volatile elements on each side, and Trump made the point that not everyone there came prepared to do violence. He said, [quote]”You also had some very fine people on both sides. . . . You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of—to them—a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”[/quote] Then he said, [quote]“…I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally.”[/quote] Guess which of those quotes got left out of the official story? Guess which quote is still being used by major media outlets and opposition legislators? Sorry to beat a dead horse, but guess which quote was referenced by a frontrunning Presidential candidate this week? But hey, we live in a country right now where Trump is flying flags at half mast until 8/8 because “H” is the 8th letter of the alphabet, and so “8/8” is CLEARLY a standin for “Heil Hitler.” I’m inundated with this shit, I don’t have time to verify every wacked-out claim made by our media firefighter watchdogs (I think I saw this claim made by an MSNBC contributor? I might be wrong on that, though--it’s been reported and repeated widely, but I don’t recall the original attribution), and I clearly cannot just take them at their word. Is it any wonder that the right dismiss claims of Trump’s malfeasance out of hand? Is it any wonder that I’m exhausted bless my little heart? Can you at least entertain the possibility that Trump supporters aren’t all unequivocally dyed-in-the-wool racists, baby-eaters, and puppy-murderers, that there just <i>might</i> be some nuance there that has slipped by? Do you know how alienating it is to be repeatedly accused of having beliefs you don’t possess (or have those beliefs completely misrepresented), and the only way to set the record straight is to go all the fuckin’ way back to 2000 to present context for the initial false premise the accusation was based on, and then walk week by week through news reports to the present day, only to be dismissed out of hand by the media, by our “leaders,” by our neighbors, simply because we can’t line up our ideologies point-for-point? <a href=https://twitter.com/PamKeithFL/status/1155474672789725184>It’s fucking EXHAUSTING, it happens constantly,</a> and...who’s it gonna persuade? Or are all of us past persuasion and into full-on, balls-hanging-out-insane, mysterio prime territory at this point?[/quote]