Westministenders: Another Thread, another Shit Show. Its Trump Week

[RedToothBrush]

That is all.

wood are you American? Whilst I agree with your assessment of the war itself , people who did not go when called up to fight in Vietnam were - and still are- called draft dodgers. A large number of young men dodged because of political protest (Ali for one) which is now regarded as noble and honorable by some, but not all, Americans. Others used considerable privilege to avoid going because of no political conviction. I can't say I terribly blame young men who were frightened to fight and die , but Trump definitely falls into the second category and would, were he not Trump, be viewed very negatively by many many Americans.

I was a student when the Vietnam war was in its closing stages, sometime in the spring of 1972. I remember the 6 o'clock news coming on, reporting about some offensive, and one of the friends I shared a house with saying 'My God, the Americans are losing.' We were absolutely stunned, because this seemed unbelievable, and not what had really been reported. A few months later, this was seen to be the case when the Americans evacuated with the helicopter leaving the roof of the Embassy.

Watergate was also beginning to rumble on in the background but hadn't yet blown up.

Yep, peregrina I was a teen then

It seemed the Vietnam war would go on for ever .... then suddenly the US was fleeing and abandoning its South Vietnamese allies
The helicopters from the embassy roof were a shocking confirmation

Watergate was another shock
For the first year or two, I was naively assuming no President would ever be be so corrupt to get involved in such sordid political dirty tricks

Then suddenly it was obvious Tricky Dicky was a crook

Around that time, Bloody Sunday showed me that institutions of the British state would commit mass murder to keep control
and how it would cover up what it did

So, the early 70s were my political awakening

I travelled round Europe, the Near East (as was), India and Afghanistan (a modernising country then) in the early 70s. There were young Americans all over. They were one and all opposed to the immoral and illegal (in terms of the actions taken, at least) war in Vietnam. They were all, afaik, patriotic Americans who loved their country but deplored the actions of its Government. It was hard even then to comprehend the enormity of a country sending its young men to die in a futile war. It seems even more shocking in retrospect.

I remember watching grainy American broadcast footage of the Vietnam War on John Craven's Newsround. I was 11 in 1975 so a good deal of the ins and outs of it went over my head.

A cousin of my dad's was related by marriage to a Democratic politician and the whole extended family all hated Nixon with a vengeance. I remember sitting at breakfast listening to the RTE morning news when the results of the 1972 presidential election that returned Nixon for his second term were announced. My dad said after the radio had been turned off (no further news could be digested) that all the best people had been shot and the worst remained, holding the reins.

Nixon tapped into fear of course. Fear of internal and external enemies, and fear of change, and he encouraged the fears that give rise to racism. Utterly scurrilous.

Interesting to read the perspective of others on imperial invincibility and on the foreign adventures of the US.

My grandparents on both sides participated in Ireland's war of independence and subsequent civil war. My parents were both inclined as a result of their parents' experiences defeating an empire, and their observations of that empire ever since Irish independence (Churchill's mealy mouthed criticism of Ireland's neutrality for instance, and first hand knowledge of how NI was run from 1922 on, plus much more to do with Irish history from the perspective of Irish Republicans) to give the Vietnamese excellent odds and in fact to cheer them on.

Irish people tended to also be quite aware in the 70s and 80s of American crimes committed in the name of defence against communism in Central America and South America, and the immorality and illegality of American support for terrible regimes such as Pinochet's and the Juntas in Argentina, plus violent, authoritarian regimes elsewhere in SA.

The RC church was very much concerned by atrocities in Central America, and produced booklets and magazines that were disseminated in Irish schools and churches. Many Irish people had relatives who were involved in missionary activity in places where the CIA was actively crushing dissent in the most brutal way possible.

Fronto-temporal dementia means that you don't lose your memories - you just lose your character, your speech, your finer instincts - as well as (like other dementias), your ability to walk, to swallow. Mum always knew who we (and all her friends) were, right to the end - but as I said to my dad, she stopped wanting to access any other memories.

But every dementia is different: I hate it when people say, "Music is always a way to reach them." No. It's. Not. My mum had been a singer, sang in a choir, loved all music (classical and classic pop) - but towards the end, stopped even wanting to listen to it.

It actually scares me, the thought that Trump might have a form of dementia My mum began over-reacting to the slightest thing - for example when ds (then 7) started reading Captain Underpants with all its childish grammar. Mum was appalled - yet the English teacher part of her would (normally) have been pleased that ds was finally reading

Heaven knows what his lack of inhibitions might lead to I just hope he has a good team around him who are keeping an eye on him and giving him the wrong codes

Piggy no I’m not American.
The ‘draft dodgers’ and protesters I knew were not afraid to go to war. More that they saw it as an unjust war and that the US should not interfere in other countries.
Of course there was also the Korean War in the 1950s. Another war against communism which was never really resolved.

My late DF had vascular demetia for few years before he died. He hadn't been an easy man to live with when we were children, but as an adult I had a good relationship with him, and would have much preferred to keep the man with the sharp wit and caustic views of the world than the shell of himself that he became. He used to love crosswords and opera and completely lost interest in both. The worst was, he knew himself that he was losing it.

FIL probably had milder demetia but he remained happy within himself.

Do you think its safe for me to come back out of hiding yet? How sane moderate Americans haven't had a collective national breakdown and not rioted is beyond me. Maybe we have that yet to come as he's not going to leave the Whitehouse willingly, even if he loses an election. He wants a dynasty.

I think Trump is just a horrible man. No illness. Just that self serving and obnoxious. Look at his past and tell me he deteriorated in some way. His track record as a crook and a liar goes way back.

Anyway can we talk about more interesting things?

Like the epic Peterborough By-election tomorrow. Yay!

Or Tory Leadership Battle Royale?

I can stomach those.

If the by election is a twatty brexit party win then you might be better off hiding a bit longer....

Peterborough
(after that interlude with Trump talking about Ireland's wall !)

• The former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya was removed by a petition recall, following her comviction and jailing for lying about a speeding offence
  She is a Leaver, btw

• In the ref, Peterborough backed leaving by 60% to 40%

• They voted overwhelmingly for the Faragists in the EP elections, with Labour a poor 2nd, LDems a close 3rd and Tories annhilated

• Her majority at the 2017 GE was only 607 over the Tories.
  The seat has changed hands quite a bit over the years. Very marginal.

• Faragist - and former Tory - Mike Greene is the hot favourite to win
  He says expects at least 70% of his votes to be from former Tories

So the Tories can expect another electoral hammering,
but it would mean too that Labour have lost a seat, even if it is one of their most marginal

• if they ever want to return to govt, they need to be winning Tory & LD marginals, not losing their own,

Oh dear
Huff says Bookies no longer taking bets on Nigel Farage's party getting its first MP

I don't have a good feeling about the by-election today. But...it's Peterborough. It's not like a staunchly remain seat will swing wildly to the right to vote BXP. I'm amazed anybody bothered betting recently as the odds must've been shoddy for any kind of return on the bet!

I'm just outside the age range of baby boomers. My siblings aren't. Our parents were the wartime generation and there has been a strong cultural thread since the 1950s of either kicking against their sacrifices and focusing on the future TOGETHER or being weirdly jealous of what that generation did - fuelled by films and tv that we all watched in the days of two or three channels on tv.
This unicorn fantasy strikes me as feeding my n that from people who were actually too young to really know what was going on around them or weren't even born in the 1940s.

Mike Greene has admitted he knows little about any policies, apart forma desire to elave. Howvere, he is quite well liked in the area as he has put a lot of money into business and has an honorary degree from Anglia Ruskin. He SAYS he is running on 4 local pledges : education, further education (there is annoyance locally about stalled plans to create a university) , housing and I forget the other. I don't think it's immigration, might be jobs (which is local code) or health (ditto)

Yesterday, he admitted he knows nothing about the Irish situation.

The local news stopped people and actually only 1 in 8 people mentioned Brexit as a concern. So, that's why he is emphasising his local credentials.

Excuse typos! Aaargh!

I agree re Trump OP. I think looking for illness (and , to be fair, Reagan was in decline when he was president so there are precedents) is , in some ways, to minimise or excuse the behaviour of a very nasty man.

All talk then, this Mike Greene? Quite clever to get somebody who's well-liked in general in the area though, isn't it?

I'm surprised he's not mentioning Brexit at all. Bit of an elephant in the room given his party's name and apparent aim!

On another note, I do a survey every day about my TV viewing and radio listening habits. Today I had an extra survey asking me specifically about my thoughts on QT. So I gave it both barrels where I had the opportunity to comment. I've no idea who reviews the answers or pays for the questions to be asked, but it's a bit like the YouGov of TV viewing, I imagine!

I am sure he is mentioning it : but not in TV interviews. Oddly, he isn't always asked about it either. I think this is local news trying to establish what is other policies are but it does appear to be soft touch questioning at times.

I'm surprised he's not mentioning Brexit at all.

I'm not. The Faragist leader has gradually shifted position too. He wouldn't actually leave EU membership either. He's shifted position from Norway, to no deal, to 'this fight's no longer about the EU it's about democracy'.

Brexit, after all, could mean an exit from any previous way of doing anything. You can Brexit from first past the post, or Brexit from the NHS or Brexit from broken politics.

Is Trump suffering from dementia vs Is Trump just a nasty piece of work who has never had a filter - is a topic of discussion on American TV all the time. There's a whole thing about professionals not diagnosing people they haven't examined. And a bunch of professionals saying he is obviously mentally incapable.

Trump may well have dementia.

He's still a white supremacist cunt - who happens to have dementia.

We will have to wait until tonight, but if this Mike Greene is a local business man with a genuine commitment to the community, there is a good chance that he would 'go native' once elected and distance himself from Farage.

I keep hanging on to the memory of the last by-election with Farage and UKIP where the Tories romped home, and the press screamed their heads off about Labour being pushed into fourth place - missing the story of the UKIP collapse. The Brexit party, when it comes down to it, is only Farage. Once he's bored and moves on, it will collapse.

Farage, no, he's not likely to want to leave the EU in a hurry - he knows he's in the First Class carriage of the gravy train. If leaving had been the piece of cake they all promised then he might have jumped onto that train. Hence also his back peddling on the NHS - he knows it's popular, and privatising it (openly) would be a big vote loser.

{He's shifted position from Norway, to no deal, to 'this fight's no longer about the EU it's about democracy'.}

Which fits in with a plan to kill the EU from the inside by having MEPs to disrupt EP business, with the aid of his chums from Italy France and wherever with their reverse connections to Bannon.