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George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

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Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#301

Post by tempestn »

VickBear wrote: post #194
jdavis703 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're seeing two pieces of outrage over Trump. The first is the predictable liberal outrage: he's proposing policy that conflicts with what liberals want. Then there's the anger and fear from what appears to be fascist, authorities tendencies in Trump. That's one reason why a President Pence doesn't scare me (and apparently others who are calling for Trump's impeachment). Sure Pence won't work for liberal in…

Where is Trump actively working to gut free press, due process, and a free and fair voting process? Can you share sources with those claims?

One example of Trump acting against free press was his refusal to answer a CNN reporter's question because he didn't like their coverage of the golden showers thing.

That said, parent didn't say Trump is already doing all these things; they said that people fear he will, based on his actions and statements so far.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#302

Post by ElectronCharge »

hiharryhere wrote: post #294
ElectronCharge wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Failure to give up business interests is breaking precedent and confounding ethicists, but also doesn't seem to be illegal." It is not "breaking precedent". George Washington kept his farm. It's entirely unreasonable to expect a regular citizen to give up his business simply because he's elected to public office. Trump has taken many steps to ensure there's no conflict of interest.

He's taken the appearance of many steps. Owning a farm is a little different to being involved in sprawling international ventures that leave you open to pressure from foreign powers.

Since he's gifting all profits from foreign ventures to the US Treasury, there is no "pressure".

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#303

Post by jakeogh »

twright0 wrote: post #296
jakeogh wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

227 vs 306 is not close. I said near-landslide because a landlside (I think) is usually something >=370. No worries, it might still happen.

I'll also point out that Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes (2%), which makes it really stretch the imagination to even call it a "near-landslide".

Sure, except popular vote does not matter, nor should it. If it did, CA and NY's echo boxes would run the US, and there would be no US in short order. Don't forged why the Unites States exists; taxation without representation.

He could have lost FL _or_ OH and still won.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#304

Post by zouhair »

beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

Think of something highly dangerous and highly improbable any POTUS could do and it most likely it will happen with this guy.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#305

Post by vitro »

beloch wrote: post #17

I must admit, I'm really confused by how impeachment works in the U.S.. Clinton was impeached for perjury and abuse of power because he took advantage of his position (and a political intern) and then lied about it. Now we have a president who is not giving up his business interests while in office and who has already told some absolute whoppers, including the release of official press releases that were nothing but…

One has to be careful not to get carried away by those little mistakes, lies and glitches as it may be just a bait to distract general public from the bigger picture and his agenda.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#307

Post by vedranm »

_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #151
stevenmays wrote: post #59

Customers also bought: Anthem by Ayn Rand. Irony.

Trumps protectionism is right out of the Ayn Rand villains handbook.

This is simply untrue. Ayn Rand doesn't speak about international free trade in Atlas Shrugged, as the rest of the developed world in her story turns into People's States. She did support international free trade, but not "free trade" of TPP and TTIP.

What remains to be seen is whether the domestic trade policies of Trump will be in alignment with what Ron Paul and other Ayn Rand devotees propose. He promised deregulation, so it might happen [1].

tl;dr: Trump might be moving the world towards a Galt's Gulch analogue without being an Ayn Rand devotee.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/23/trump-tells-business-leaders-...

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#308

Post by mynameishere »

brennebeck wrote: post #271
sschueller wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why he got that far in the primaries and then eventually got elected. Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true which muddied the water to a point where people stopped listening when serious things came up. All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story. We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example…

> Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true What wasn't true? Honestly curious as I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him. > All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story. Certainly, but that doesn't discount the validity of the reported incidents. > We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. Fo…

His obsessive marijuana habit as a youth; his decades-long black nationalist religious associations; his gangster affiliations; his lengthy professional work with convicted terrorists; his family's foreign intelligence connections, etc, etc.

I suspect all of these things were widely reported, yet largely spurious accusations.

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#309

Post by akiselev »

pmyjavec wrote: post #219
akiselev wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you honestly don't believe the world is unambiguously better now than it was 20-30 years ago, you've been living under a continental plate the entire time. The world has gotten better in almost every way including the rapid fall in poverty rates, more reliable sources of food and medicine, and better access to technology for even the poorest folk. All the problems that seem so overwhelming now like the threat of n…

"and better access to technology for even the poorest folk" I hear this one a lot, I don't think it matters or is relevant. I've spent time in third world countries I met people sleeping, working and eating in rubish dumps, and they're not even considered the poorest! I didn't see them running around with technology, nor do I see how that would change there situation much.

> I hear this one a lot, do you have a source to prove this?

What kinds of source would be most convincing for such a broad question such as this? How about the fact that as many people have escaped extreme poverty since 1990 as there are human beings alive in Europe [1]? Average global purchasing power more than doubling [2]? Or maybe global agricultural output growing more than twice as fast as the world population since 2000 [3]? Life expectancy at birth increasing by more than 10% [4]? The massive decline in fatalities from armed conflicts [5]? Growths in industrial productivity that dwarfs even the industrial revolution [6]? How about access to technology that can instantly connect you to half of the world [7]? Price of renewable energy finally at parity with fossil fuels even in the face of the Republican party [8]? The number of people living under elected representatives instead of authoritarian regimes nearly doubling [9]?

Better yet, what evidence do you have that invalidates all of the above? Even if you're the world's ultimate nit-picker, the data is overwhelmingly positive.

> I've spent time in third world countries and not even the poorest people were working and eating in rubish dumps and guess there slept?

I didn't see them running around with technology.

The only region in the world where less than half the population has access to at least mobile broadband is Subsaharan Africa. Even now the wealthiest nations have citizens that fall through cracks in the system and live in destitution but the big picture is clear: the world is better off now than it ever has been.

[1] http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/report-2013/mdg-report...

[2] http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=xx&v=67

[3] http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do...

[4] https://www.clio-infra.eu/datasets/search

[5] http://www.hsrgroup.org/docs/Publications/HSR2013/HSRP_Repor...

[6] http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/global-economic-monit...

[7] http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2

[8] http://sunmetrix.com/sunmetrix-grid-parity-map-for-residenti...

[9] https://ourworldindata.org/democracy/

Re: George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

#310

Post by manarth »

brennebeck wrote: post #271
sschueller wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why he got that far in the primaries and then eventually got elected. Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true which muddied the water to a point where people stopped listening when serious things came up. All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story. We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. For example…

> Every gaffe was reported on and some of it also not true What wasn't true? Honestly curious as I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him. > All of this just for profit and tv ratings. There is also ego in there because who want's to be the last to break a story. Certainly, but that doesn't discount the validity of the reported incidents. > We see the same thing happening when a disaster occurs. Fo…

  I don't remember any truly spurious accusations against him.
The only one I can think of is the MLK story. In 2009, Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill (lent by the UK to George W Bush after the 9/11 attack) from the Oval Office, returning it to the British Embassy in Washington [1].

Obama had a bust of Martin Luther King on display in the Oval Office.

After Trump's inauguration, a WH press-pool reporter noticed and reported on Twitter that the Churchill bust was back in the office (it was), then added that the MLK bust had been removed (it hadn't, it was simply obscured by a door).

It was never really a story - just a handful of tweets - and the reporter tweeted the correction within an hour [2]. Trump has used this as an example of "media dishonesty:".

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/462314...

[2] http://www.snopes.com/mlk-bust-oval-office/

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