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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Aug 16, 2017 - 07:39pm PT
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 16, 2017 - 07:50pm PT
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WTF Craig😜
I've climbed with Tom tomorrow. He barely knows anything about building houses, and it seems he knows shite bout free speech!?
To me it seems like trump is attacking the physicalist, NOT the mere talkers.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2017 - 10:11pm PT
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Bear with me here... it provides a perspective on current USA politics and actions, and perhaps gives a glimpse to our future.
I have recently become more aware of the extent of my ignorance of 20th century history and how it deeply affects our modern society. Over the last few weeks, I became familiar with a Netflix series related to the Colombian drug wars, about JJ Velasquez Vasquez in the aftermath of Pablo Escobar's capture:
https://www.netflix.com/search?q=JJ&jbv=80141259&jbp=0&jbr=0
Interested to tease out fact from dramatization, I searched a bit and found this documentary about the main character. Creepy dude (well, a dude without the impediment of compassion), and appalling how he can be celebrated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3SyM6XpW0A
Some Youtube comments cast light on the circumstances in Colombia which make it easier to understand the perspective of potential fans- how desensitized people are to violence, how people do whatever they have to for survival because there is no social safety net or welfare system (other than what was provided by Escobar- which can be seen as a humanitarian intention or a calculated effort to buy his personal safety and invest in recruiting the army of loyal street soldiers he needed), etc... and it got me to digging more on the circumstances in Colombia which led to me to the history preceding La Violencia and the rise of the Cartels and the drug wars:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_conflict
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia
A pivotal action appears to be the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in 1948 which triggered decades of political chaos:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Eli%C3%A9cer_Gait%C3%A1n
The circumstances appear to be contested and murky, but a variant with strong claims makes it a CIA action. If you have Google Chrome browser, you can use the "translate" function to read this page:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article124740.html
In short, this is a version of history I have gleaned, and I welcome any feedback from folks who are more informed:
1. Colombia had an economy dominated by agricultural/coffee production and export, which led to the majority of workers living in extreme poverty (dirt floors, no running water, etc.) while the wealth production was quite aggregated and the whole system was very good for USA.
2. World War II wrapped up, beginning the Cold War between USA and USSR (a fight between the two most powerful organizations standing after the war, ostensibly supporting capitalist vs communist ideologies, but really about the two biggest gangs with loose coupling to their ideological underpinnings).
3. Jorge Eliécer Gaitán rose in popularity in Colombia because he had his finger on the pulse of the terrible and growing divide between rich and poor, he spoke eloquently about it, and he had a plan to deal with it.
Note the link from the "voltairenet" website is history with a Cuban spin, and it indicates that Gaitán was supported by liberal and conservative folks alike... but other sources seem to place Gaitán as more of a pure socialist/populist guy that would be closer to Bernie Sanders in our time. But, he rose to power and prominence as a legal advocate for worker's rights and curbing the abuse of corporate power in the wake of Colombian military shooting its own citizens to defend United Fruit Company (USA economic empire) that didn't like the worker protests. More info, search "Santa Marta Massacre" or "Banana Massacre". So that's how Gaitán rose to prominence. The book "Gaitán of Colombia: A Political Biography" (page 111) seems to indicate that a conservative strategy to divide the liberals was to actually donate money to Gaitán as that revelation may have compromised his moral high ground or sowed divisions among the liberal power centers to fragment that base and ensure a conservative winning the next election even though the conservative viewpoints were less overall popular.
All of this perhaps reinforces the point that liberal and conservative labels and divisions are a powerful distraction from the more fundamental issue of wealth distribution and policies that affect it. People's fear of losing their hard-earned wealth, no matter large or small, is a powerful weapon that convinces many people to accept a system that robs the vast majority of people, extracting their hard labor without giving them rewards commensurate with their efforts. Manipulating this fear, with the divisions of "liberal" and "conservative" and using "socialist" as a bad word is a means for those with power to aggregate it and hold it over time, even in a country with democratic elections where it is not in the interest of the majority of people to have this strong imbalance in wealth distribution.
The issue of reaping what you sow and personal responsibility/accountability is an ideal that can coexist with a more equitable model for wealth distribution in a society, but without having the societal education or attention-span or depth of discussion to tease this out, we remain enslaved.
Anyways, back to Gaitán... he was popular, and his ideas were not consistent with the widespread exploitation of Colombians to produce cheaper coffee or fruit for USA while enriching an elite class. This seems like a bigger motive for CIA to get rid of him, rather than the competing argument that it was a USSR plot to break up the Inter-American conference promoting trade in the Americas. That event would be a perfect backdrop to blame the Russians for USA actions. The Banana Massacre is already a historical precedent for the USA to intervene violently in Colombia against the best interests of the majority population to ensure the beneficial outcome for the USA corporate interest. And what better way to repeat the pattern than against the guy who threatened the status quo and who rose to power by casting light and seeking justice for the past violence?
I don't have the resources or attention span to dig further, but it seems that as many things change in the world, the desperate struggle for power and control, and the underhanded means of obtaining it, remain constant.
So why do I post this on the USA policy issues thread? It's not just USA bashing guilt-accepting liberal mish-mash. It is an opening for discussion of:
 liberal vs conservative labels masking the more fundamental issue of wealth distribution.
A less well known perspective and historical context in which our present societal battles of rich vs poor have already been played out.
A chance to discuss the distinctions of socialism and the fears related to that, which divide the powerful common interest into fragmented "liberal" groups (think Hillary and Bernie) and to a lesser extent "conservative" parties, all of which enables the wealthiest folks to continue having their political interests served... Read the overview of the
Gaitánista Program to note that this "socialist" platform is more nuanced and pragmatic than taking from rich and giving to poor. It is the fear of conservatives, informed by an overly simplistic analysis/understanding of wealth distribution in a society, that is milked to turn conservatives against liberals and prevent the common pursuit of shared interest among the population. Note that "distribution" as used here refers to the statistical measure of where wealth is owned across a society, not the act of taking the hard-earned wealth of richer people and giving or "distributing" it to the poor. Reallocation/redistribution from rich to poor may be part of a model to have a more equitable end result of wealth distribution in a society (end result that honors the dignity and efforts and ingenuity of citizens while also preventing gross imbalances that arise from the aggregation of power in uncontrolled feedback loops because of policies that favor corporate interests vs societal interests), but it should be considered in the context of where the wealth is created and who gets to keep in in the end, apart from which hands it changes between to reach a reasonable/equitable end state. In other words, just looking at a last step where money is "stolen from the rich" in the form of taxes reallocated to the poor, is just looking at a fragment of the big picture in which our socio-economic-political framework allows the rich to steal and aggregate the wealth in the first place.
Perhaps this is a cautionary tale of a way in which our society can descend into decades of violence, the cheapening of human life and commonplace occurrence of murder, in the wake of huge political issues and growing inequities between rich and poor. It seems that things in USA are so different because our poor class is so much more comfortable than the poor class in Colombia... and USA is in the driver seat in terms of being the powerful exploiter while Colombia is the subservient vassal. But think ahead a decade or two when there are no more jobs because of automation. Who can afford running water then? Who can afford to have other than a dirt floor then? What stops people from being murdered for $1 or a potato if it fends of starvation in their family? And perhaps China will still be humming along in growth mode because they are trying to balance between personal profit motive associated with capitalism, and societal well-being enforced through strong state control (while still struggling with the ever-fickle human quest for power and the negative side-effects thereof).
Now ask yourself, what is the Democratic Party doing to address these things? What is the Republican Party doing to address these things? Who is closer to dealing with the problem, and who is more receptive to solutions that will address it? There is corruption and human frailty in every organization- even religions with the highest ideals. But even though we can't eradicate corruption and human frailty, we should at least aim for systems and organizations that give us all a fighting a chance to maintain the sanctity and dignity of life.
It is true that protecting personal property and tapping into our natural greed and ambition is an effective part of capitalism for productivity in our society. It is a critical element of making a society work because we can't rely on widespread altruistic attitudes. People just don't work that way (literally and figuratively). But we also have to address the real need to have a system that more equitably rewards the efforts of citizens and provides all citizens access to the avenues of wealth creation in our society and protection from personal economic calamities. In my view, this system should include an educational baseline that gives similar opportunities to all children, and a healthcare system that doesn't destroy folks who are struggling and working hard to climb upward in the socieconomic strata.
School Voucher systems and delegation to states represents the Balkanization of our educational standards, the first step in destroying them rather than strengthening them. Without equitable access to education across our nation, we amplify the disparities that exist between rich and poor.
Without a healthcare system that protects all citizens, everyone lives in fear of losing their life's accumulated wealth and hard work to pay for a health issue, and it undermines the individual motive to work hard and take risks for the sake of creating wealth. Even if people are motivated to work harder out of fear to pay for their health, there is still a bigger burden on poor people who stop investing in themselves or their children because of immediate financial needs.
... damnit can keep going forever it seems, but I gotta get back to work.
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Vlad Pricker
Mountain climber
The cliffs of insanitty
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Aug 17, 2017 - 02:55am PT
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But why you reckon he did hesitate?
Because Einar finally recognised Eric as his brother. (I watched this flick last week.)
i bet a cheeseburger thee politards don't know!!
Hold the ketchup on my cheeseburger, extra Dijon mustard please.
But is that thee or three politards? If the latter, zBrown and I make two, waiting for the third.
And indeed, if it is three, does that mean we have to split the cheeseburger (singular) in thirds?
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Aug 17, 2017 - 05:31am PT
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Vlad Licker ( Trump )... Special orders don't upset us... Hold your pickle and your lettuce... Make me three.. Please... .. rj
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 17, 2017 - 06:31am PT
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Wow ok three In n Outs comin up😋
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2017 - 10:48am PT
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In the spirit of the thread title, here is an important national policy issue that receives little attention but demonstrates, yet once again, the inexperience and incompetence of the Trump administration:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis
Thanks for sharing that Degaine. It's a long article but the seriousness of the issues just keeps growing as it goes on. Quite horrifying without exaggeration, and I hope there are a lot of unsung heroes right now fighting to do their jobs and protect us from these myriad issues in spite of how the present administration has engaged them (or not).
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 17, 2017 - 11:07am PT
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Nutagin.
Excellent digging and reasoning. TFPU!
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Aug 17, 2017 - 11:23am PT
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When the US and our allies defeated the Nazis, we didn't allow them to construct any monuments to "the boys who wore the swastikas."
But here in the US, we did things differently, and we allowed a certain segment of our society to become attached to their public displays of our history of racism.
And now it's hard for us to go back and do it right the first time. 150 years later, median white wealth is 13 times median black wealth, and we have a culture of worship for "the boys who wore the swastikas," and "the boys who wore the blue."
And with Trump as our fake leader, it's just getting worse.
"You can't change history, but you can learn from it," he said.
Denazification directive 30. We haven't learned from it.
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c wilmot
climber
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Aug 17, 2017 - 11:31am PT
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"the boys who wore the blue"
That would be the union soldiers. The confederates wore gray
how quick history is forgotten
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Aug 17, 2017 - 12:01pm PT
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It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
Mark Twain
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 17, 2017 - 12:08pm PT
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Timeline of confederate monument installations...
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Norton
Social climber
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Aug 17, 2017 - 12:18pm PT
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well, today the author of Trump's "Art of the Deal" , who knows him very well
said that he predicts that he will resign the Presidency as earlier as this year yet
declare victory, and go back to choosing which toilet needs more gold plating
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Aug 17, 2017 - 12:19pm PT
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I often wonder if Trump remembers/realizes that his favorite daughter, her husband, and their 3 kids are all orthodox jewish. With the abundant antisemitism at Charlottesville, how the heck do you compartmentalize that? Trump seems amazing at compartmentalization, but that would seem to be above and beyond.
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2017 - 03:27pm PT
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Rather than just assuming pure idiocy, I am attributing some of the Trump Charlotte/confederacy circus to a jaded calculation of shifting people's attention and a profound lack of concern for the responsibilities of his office:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-infrastructure-idUSKCN1AV1ZI
Trump doesn't give a crap if people are outraged at him, maybe even enjoys it, and in the mean time he doesn't have to justify the stripping away of environmental protections or even basic forward-looking safety issues with the increasing rate of flooding from climate change.
From the article:
Rafael Lemaitre, former director of public affairs at FEMA who worked on the Obama-era order, said Trump is undoing "the most significant action taken in a generation" to safeguard U.S. infrastructure.
"Eliminating this requirement is self-defeating; we can either build smarter now, or put taxpayers on the hook to pay exponentially more when it floods. And it will," he said.
Basically, it's a boondoggle for short term gains to line the pockets of developers and to enable resource exploitation industries to get as many projects started as possible and grandfathered in with whatever environmental damage accepted, before a change of administration. The Vanity Fair article provides a penetrating counterpoint to evaluate what things are actually getting done by this administration and what things are not.
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dirtbag
climber
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Aug 17, 2017 - 03:42pm PT
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The most pressing national policy issue is still the competency of our narcissistic, bigoted president. Our country is in grave danger as long as he is at the helm.
Today, Republican senator Bob Corker questioned his competency:
We’re at a point where there needs to be radical changes at the White House — it has to happen. He [President Trump] recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of our nation — what has made it great and what it is today. He’s got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that. Without those things happening, our nation is going to go through great peril. . .
We should hope that he aspires, that he does some self reflection, and that he does what is necessary to demonstrate stability, to demonstrate competence and demonstrate he understands the character of our nation and works daily to bring out the best from the people of our nation. Helping to inspire divisions because it generates support from your base is not a formula for causing our nation to advance and to overcome the many issues that we have to deal with right now.
Ok, that's nice. Now what are you going to do about it?
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Aug 17, 2017 - 05:44pm PT
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When I turned the gas on my stove yesterday, it was sunny, and flames lept from the burners. But today, it's cloudy, so who knows? End of that line of reasoning :-)
I agree though DMT, it is a work in progress. Part of the progress IMHO is affecting the notion that these are just legitimate historical/cultural monuments. Kind of I guess, they are, in the way that Nazi statues would be historical/cultural monuments if we had allowed them. But that we didn't allow them, maybe not a bad thing. I'm not sure that the historical/cultural admirers of the statues would be cultural/historical admirers of Nazi monuments, if we had allowed them. Maybe they would be.
Mostly though I think it's about other things. Identity? Who I associate with and identify with? What they say and what they stand for and what they support? You were rude to me once, so I'm never going to agree with you again?
I've got my own struggles and failures in that department. It's hard to avoid. But maybe if we can disassociate ourselves from those kinds of reasons that we tell ourselves we believe things (like IMHO that these are just morally valid historical/cultural monuments, instead of that people like me are all upset about their removal?) we'll have a better shot at believing the same things? I don't know, seems like a tough job.
Sorry, confused blue and gray. I'm colorblind! Hope that doesn't prevent you from seeing.
Best y'all!
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Vlad Pricker
Mountain climber
The cliffs of insanitty
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Aug 17, 2017 - 05:46pm PT
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That would be the union soldiers. The confederates wore gray
Good catch C Wilmot, but I believe we know what he meant.
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