For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

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_Xenophon
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _Xenophon »

Some Schmo wrote:This rings true for me, although I know practically nothing about her, so I wouldn't make the same claim definitively. When I saw her on Real Time, though, she struck me as a little off. The Koch's are critical of Drumpf to disguise their secret plot with him? Hmmmm...
I haven't watched the video so don't want to comment on the conspiracy theory but did have a point about your comment that I've bolded. We've got more than enough evidence to suggest that criticism from Republican Politicians is mostly just lip service. There have already been countless times that Ryan/McConnell (and everyone below) use outward criticism of Trump to maintain the image that they are principled individuals but they offer next to no real resistance (trade war being our most recent example). It isn't too much of a stretch that the Koch dudes may be criticism Trump to keep the money flowing and the heat off of them but they plan on offering no true pushback.

Although they may disagree with him on many policies do you honestly think they would prefer if Clinton had won? Bernie? They are getting the court they like, tax laws they like, deregulation that they like... what is there for them to really complain about?
"If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation." -Xenophon of Athens
_Some Schmo
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _Some Schmo »

Xenophon wrote:I haven't watched the video so don't want to comment on the conspiracy theory but did have a point about your comment that I've bolded. We've got more than enough evidence to suggest that criticism from Republican Politicians is mostly just lip service. There have already been countless times that Ryan/McConnell (and everyone below) use outward criticism of Trump to maintain the image that they are principled individuals but they offer next to no real resistance (trade war being our most recent example). It isn't too much of a stretch that the Koch dudes may be criticism Trump to keep the money flowing and the heat off of them but they plan on offering no true pushback.

Although they may disagree with him on many policies do you honestly think they would prefer if Clinton had won? Bernie? They are getting the court they like, tax laws they like, deregulation that they like... what is there for them to really complain about?

I hear what you're saying, and I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility. I just remember feeling some incredulity from the way she was talking about it, that's all.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
_Xenophon
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _Xenophon »

Some Schmo wrote:I hear what you're saying, and I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility. I just remember feeling some incredulity from the way she was talking about it, that's all.
Point taken. That is what I get for not watching the video :wink: .
"If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation." -Xenophon of Athens
_EAllusion
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _EAllusion »

Xenophon wrote:I haven't watched the video so don't want to comment on the conspiracy theory but did have a point about your comment that I've bolded. We've got more than enough evidence to suggest that criticism from Republican Politicians is mostly just lip service.


Let me see if I can summarize:

The Kochs have recently been critical of Trump. This, however, is kayfabe intentionally used to distract the public from Donald Trump's actions so the public pays less attention to the Koch-led effort to install Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. This will be the final nail in the coffin for allowing the philosophy of James Buchanan, the big bad in MacLean's worldview, to control the judiciary. This will allow the Koch's, via ALEC, to have an article V constitutional convention to rewrite the US constitution based around Buchananism so it is no longer a democracy, but rather a libertarian oligarchy. Right wing radio host Mark Levin's laughable Liberty Amendments book is a guide to what that would look like.

Hopefully I got that right. This is told with the kind of Glenn Beckian tone you normally see the far right talk about Saul Alinsky.

More broadly, her arguments center around some egregiously bad quote-mining, misrepresentations, and sketchy inferences to paint James Buchanan as the principle inspiration for a Koch brothers led effort to subvert democracy because their politics are inherently unpopular. The ultimate aim of their reactionary politics is to establish an oligarchy. It is highly reminiscent of Naomi Klein's similar egregious misrepresentations of Milton Friedman to paint him as a principle inspiration of causing catastrophes in nations in order to to pave the way for oligarchic control.

To the point she's addressing and your comment, more realistically, the Kochs have serious ideological differences with Trump, but those differences don't rank in priority against the benefits they receive from Trumpian economic policy. The result is a lot of critical bluster, but underneath it on-going substantial support from some Koch-funded organizations, but not others.
_Xenophon
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _Xenophon »

Thanks for the summary, EA. I was worried it would be something along those lines.

EA wrote:To the point she's addressing and your comment, more realistically, the Kochs have serious ideological differences with Trump, but those differences don't rank in priority against the benefits they receive from Trumpian economic policy. The result is a lot of critical bluster, but underneath it on-going substantial support from some Koch-funded organizations, but not others.
This sums up pretty neatly what I was thinking, even if I didn't say it that clearly.
"If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation." -Xenophon of Athens
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: For Gods sake watch this & get off your asses

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Looks like the Koch brothers have started their marketing campaign for a constitutional convention:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ntion-alec

Look for talking points to include this issue to increase over the next few years, especially if Trump is re-elected.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
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