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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

#471

Post by zczc »

noobermin wrote: post #50

While I love 1984, I think Fahrenheit 451 has become more true than Orwell's novel. People have willingly given into an information bonanza that is the internet, with headphones always in (seashells). We don't need the TV walls, as our cellphone has taken that role, altogether with the hyperactive delivery of such content. A collectivist state has not become the dominating power, but wealthy individuals and corporati…

Another classic anti-utopia becoming relevant today is 'Brave New World' by Huxley. See brilliant comparison with '1984' on comic [1] which summarizes Neil Postman's book 'Amusing Ourselves to Death'.

[1]: http://highexistence.com/amusing-ourselves-to-death-huxley-v...

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

#472

Post by brennebeck »

mynameishere wrote: post #308
brennebeck wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This sounds like you just took the largest aspersions of the last 5 presidents and threw them together. That's intentional, right?

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

#473

Post by iainmerrick »

pavanred wrote: post #200
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…

I really wish people and the media stop over emphasizing about every gaffe and focus on real news stories. For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere, from TV news channels to news parody shows to talk shows to social media etc. But, at the same time it seems like there is so much more important news that one would think deserves more attention like the executive orders, w…

There are two forces at work, Trump and the Republican party. The gaffes are all Trump, the sweeping executive orders mostly the party.

He never had much of a platform beyond "build the wall!", and is happy to roll with Republican dogma. The Republicans proved during the last administration that they're willing to bend the rules to breaking point to damage their opponents; they've decided they're willing to humor Trump so they can get him to do what they want.

If the president were a more established Republican like Ted Cruz, we'd still be seeing huge and destructive changes to health care, climate change policy, etc.

It's hard to know which is the bigger threat. Trump is a new style of threat in the way he arrogantly ignores the old polite conventions and even the law itself, lining his pockets in plain sight. Letting that pass unchallenged could result in a permanent autocracy, one "strong man" after another.

The Republican party is "just" pushing an extreme agenda, similar to what they did under Bush, which is more of a known threat (or not a threat at all if you agree with their platform). But they're also neglecting their duty to push back against Trump's abuse of the system. They should be fighting tooth and nail to force him to sell his businesses.

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

#474

Post by rbanffy »

xname2 wrote: post #261
enraged_camel wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Gets lots of downvotes for no reason Not for no reason. You are being downvoted because you apparently don't understand what a conflict of interest is, and yet have the audacity to suggest that the criticisms towards Trump are "crazy".

All you guys said just proved my point: This is basically the same as saying no business person should run for the president, so just leave it only to career politicians. If you don't see this, it is simply because your crazy hate towards DJT blocked your mind.

Isn't serving one's country by being president worth some sacrifice? If preserving the image of the office is not worth his sacrifices, why the hell did he run for office?

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

#475

Post by g00gler »

loafa wrote: post #189
School-Cotton wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? The complaints are either right, or they're wrong. The complainers' motives for making their complains have no bearing on that.

Maybe, but for those of us who aren't experts on constitutional law, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is in the right, we have to decide which self-proclaimed experts to believe. For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument. I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this…

Right. I didn't like either of them, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat.

I just think it's odd to say that Trump should be impeached for something his opponent did while in office.

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

#476

Post by baddox »

int_19h wrote: post #438
rat87 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lawsuit asks the court to declare that Trump is in violation of the emoluments clause. Even if he is, though, it would be up to Congress to decide whether that merits impeaching him and removing him from office — and Republicans in Congress so far have been reluctant to look into Trump’s break with tradition on ethical issues.

If SCOTUS were to rule for the plaintiffs in this case, the Congress would be in a much more difficult spot. Right now they can dismiss it all as "he said she said" and "not really illegal". But if there's a SCOTUS ruling that the president is in violation of the Constitution, and they don't impeach, they'd basically be saying that either they don't care about the Constitution, or they don't care about SCOTUS. Either…

I don't know. I think Trump could literally say that he doesn't care about SCOTUS and it would be unlikely to be the wildest thing he said that day. A Republican majority Congress could definitely ignore a SCOTUS ruling.

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

#477

Post by [deleted] »

zigzigzag wrote: post #416
RangerScience wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm down-voting you, here's why: This is a headline and an article about "alternative facts", relating them to a book about comprehensive "alternative fact" propaganda. Not about any of things that you listed. You didn't add any meaningful information to the discussion, but have added divisive and heavily argued opinions, in a way that only furthers their divisiveness. This is not a comment on your opinions. This is…

This is a perfect example of why downvoting shouldn't exist. None of the things you think you saw in the OPs comment are there. He is expressing an opinion that is widely held, here is a good essay on the habit of anti-Trump people of crying wolf: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wolf/ Trump's spat over crowd sizes is stupid, but reflects someone terminally thin-skinned rather than a cunning…

[deleted]

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

#478

Post by baddox »

loafa wrote: post #189
School-Cotton wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? The complaints are either right, or they're wrong. The complainers' motives for making their complains have no bearing on that.

Maybe, but for those of us who aren't experts on constitutional law, it's difficult to ascertain exactly who is in the right, we have to decide which self-proclaimed experts to believe. For this reason it's helpful to understand the motives of those putting forth a particular argument. I have a rule, and I think it's a good one. When I hear some political rhetoric I ask myself "if the parties were reversed would this…

I don't think that rule can apply for anonymous Internet commenters listing objective claims. You probably don't have enough information to determine the partisanship of the commenter, and even if you did, their claims are either true or false, and debating that is almost certainly a better use of time.

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

#479

Post by iainmerrick »

wallace_f wrote: post #348
noobermin wrote: post #50

While I love 1984, I think Fahrenheit 451 has become more true than Orwell's novel. People have willingly given into an information bonanza that is the internet, with headphones always in (seashells). We don't need the TV walls, as our cellphone has taken that role, altogether with the hyperactive delivery of such content. A collectivist state has not become the dominating power, but wealthy individuals and corporati…

> the world today still is a better world it was say 20 or 30 years ago Are you sure? Can you tell me why you think this? Domestic crime has increased. We're bombing seven countries. Civil rights have been diminished. Human rights have been diminished. The last administration went to far greater lengths to go after whistle blowers and journalists than any in history. Income inequality is at all time highs. More than…

Not all those things are actually getting worse!

Crime is falling in the long term, not rising, at least in the US. Much of the world now allows same-sex marriage, which I think is an important civil rights advancement.

I take your points on war, the crackdown on whistleblowers, income inequality. But on the upside, we have tremendous advances in medicine (is that "just" technology?)

It's a mixed picture, not a universally gloomy one.

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

#480

Post by baddox »

jakeogh wrote: post #303
twright0 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Popular vote doesn't matter for who becomes president, but neither does the presence or lack of a "landslide." But both can certainly be relevant when analyzing an election.

Also, the "CA and NY would run the US" is an extremely weak argument. It's logically equivalent to saying that Texas and Oklahoma are currently running the US, since their electoral votes are sufficient to swap the winner from Trump to Clinton.

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