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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Yanno, you have NEVER addressed our American interests. Are you sure that you're really American, and that you have our interests at heart? - SIGNY

Yeah, I thought not. - SIGNY

Here's a perfect example of what a nutcase, sham you are. You ask a question and wait 12 minutes for an answer and since I'm busy with RL, you can't hold your bladder so you make up an answer for me. (Of course it's wrong, but whatever - accuracy and honesty have never been your thing).

SIGGY = Russia First, above all things.

Here's a question: what are Russia's interests?- GSTRING

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Here's a perfect example of what a fraud and a liar YOU are: I have asked this question, on and off, for OVER EIGHT MONTHS.

I have asked YOU, GSTRING, specifically, and your cohort of know-nothing trolls specifically, individually, collectively and generally, and - not having gotten an answer from ANY of you- I crEated a thread BACK IN NOVEMBER for this question. http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60986 and have not gotten an answer from YOU, GSTRING, nor from any of your cohort of know-nothing trolls (sockpuppets?) despire the fact that I have asked this question repeatedly before, during and after that thread.

EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT I HAVE ASKED THIS QUESTION MULTIPLE TIMES FOR OVER A YEAR. YOU CAN'T PRETEND THAT YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS QUESTION BEFORE WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE THE LIAR, JACKASS, IDIOT, AND TROLL THAT YOU ARE.

IT'S NOT LIKE YOU HAVEN'T HAD A CHANCE TO THINK ABOUT AN ANSWER. This was not a snap quiz on an unfamiliar question and ... damn- YOU MANAGED TO AVOID THE QUESTION, AGAIN.

My impression is- YOU REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT AMERICAN'S INTERESTS. You and your cohort of know-nothing trolls (sockpuppets?) don't give a FUCK about America. What are you - RUSSIAN?

So, ANSWER THE QUESTION, GSTRING. Put some thought and some heart into thinking about the future of YOUR "FELLOW AMERICANS" (if indeed you really are American).

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Originally posted by second:
What are America’s Interests? It doesn’t have any.

You might want to claim America’s interest is to make Americans happy. Some are happy, some aren’t, but the majority who are happy don’t care to make anybody but themselves happier. Does American interest include making non-Americans happy? If you watched how Americans spend their time and money on international charity, you won’t think most Americans care much about anybody but themselves.

End the possibility of nuclear war as an interest? You won’t think Americans care about that if you count the number of Ban The Bomb protests. Is less military adventurism an interest of Americans? Not if you count how many Americans continue to vote for the same politicians who keep increasing the military budget and certainly not if you consider how many Americans think killing your enemy is a great idea, just as long as you don’t have to kill them yourself.

Possibly the only American Interest is lower taxes and higher public services, but wanting both at the same time cancels out both and the result is American Interest = 0.

If you want to know what America’s Interest is, don’t pay any attention to what Americans say it is, because they talk too much and indulge themselves with fantasies about how wonderful they are in person. Only pay attention to what Americans do.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

lol... geez Second. I think you've been spending too much time around me.

I'm not sure if you've changed tactics just to argue or my pragmatism and nihilism have been chipping away at you over the course of my sobriety.

The only change I'd make to that entire post is swapping in the word Human for American.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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lol... geez Second. I think you've been spending too much time around me.

I'm not sure if you've changed tactics just to argue or my pragmatism and nihilism have been chipping away at you over the course of my sobriety.

The only change I'd make to that entire post is swapping in the word Human for American.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

It was a tactic to get Signym to tell us what America's Interests are.

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Democrats should be willing to prosecute banksters for fraud, rein in the Fed, negotiate with drug companies for lower prices, increase manufacturing at home, and stop meddling abroad
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61954&p=7

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Don't forget SECOND that under Saint Obama, the wealth gap kept increasing at the same rate as under Bush.

I personally think that ....

1) We need to be more self-sufficient for security and "ruggedness" purposes. That means that there should be the fewest possible "critical" commodities and supplies NOT made here. We're lucky enough to have agricultural land, water, metals, minerals and forests, and with wise stewardship we should have enough resources for the foreseeable future. Yes, there are some strategic metals that we don't have here, but we should be able to trade for those, not be dependent on other nations' largesse.

2) Our trade should be nearly balanced. It's a problem to be in perpetual trade debt; but it's also a problem being in perpetual trade surplus because then you're dependent on external markets.

3) Our wealth should be more evenly distributed, and not because of government handouts but through meaningful work available to everyone who wants to work. That fosters a mentality of self-reliance, not dependence on "government" or other centralized entity.

4) That will probably lead to reduced efficiency, but "efficiency" is a dangerous metric for judging an economy. Maximal efficiency leads to maximal fragility. Robust ecologies have multiple overlapping niches, allowing some to "fill in" for others which may suddenly go missing.

There are a series of policies that need to be implemented to get from "here" to "there": Tariffs, government loans to key industries, control of the Fed, revival of our infrastructure, change in tax structure etc etc. It would require such a comprehensive approach that no President could accomplish it in four - or eight- years, and it's extremely unlikely to occur, but I believe that it's necessary to bring the economy back in service to the American people, and not the other way around.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62099

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One of the things that makes Switzerland great is that it doesn't start wars.
It is famous for its neutrality/ isolationism, and doesn't belong to NATO or any other military alliance.
It does plan for its own defense and internal security.
Also, it has a balanced economy of manufacturing, agriculture, technology and finance.
It doesn't impose its currency as the world reserve/ petrodollar and never adopted the Euro.
It has tough immigration and residency laws.
It has a positive to neutral trade balance.
However, it's financial system is pretty dodgy.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=61482

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AND NOW ... to America's interests.

Definitionally, I argue that "America's interests" are Americans' interests.

Not the interests of the vanishingly tiny but extremely powerful elite, and not the interest of some nation far-away, or of non-citizens within our borders, but the collective interests of the overwhelming majority of American citizens.

Now, we can look at this from the microscopic scale:

1) By looking at the interests of the various interest-groups that we have been so unfortunately divided into and seeing where they overlap and generalizing outward from there,

2) Or we can look at this from a theoretical viewpoint and narrow down to specifics.

I THINK THE FIRST APPROACH IS UNLIKELY TO BE SUCCESSFUL BY ITSELF. For example, if we start out with the idea that Black Lives Matter, and Women's Pay Matters, and Gay Marriage Matters, what we will wind up is with the truism that ... well, gosh, we should all be treated fairly and equally. Who could argue with that??? But we will STILL be fighting over the scarce resource of "jobs" (albeit more fairly!) and never get to the realization that maybe what we ALL need are better-paying, consequential jobs.

So I'm going to approach this from a theoretical POV, and start with WHAT DO HUMANS NEED? and work my way from there.

I hope you come along for the discussion, I've ended my trolling (which is really boring). Unless YOU start trolling again, in which case this will be a good discussion, spoiled.

....

So, what are AMERICA'S interests??


Well, there are both individual and societal interests (as described) and although they depend on each other, they aren't the same.

Tackling societal interests first:

energy: wind, solar, carbon, hydro, animal, human etc
materiel: food, water, metals, cements and clays, fibers, etc
environmental sustainability: resources for the foreseeable future
robustness: the ability to withstand or recover from disruption
transportation
reproduction of its memes (because that is what society is: ideas of how we're supposed to live together)
self-defense against internal and external threat
and something we have yet to achieve: SOCIAL SELF AWARENESS. The ability to modify our society as necessary to get it back to the "right track"

Personally, I believe that society's purpose is to meet OUR needs, not to achieve some "higher goal" like "serving god" or "being s steward of god's creation" or "conquering the universe" or even "learning the universe" (Although that seems like a benign and possibly even useful goal). Religiously-based societies will, of course, disagree with me. But OUR needs, aside from physical requirements are

belonging to a society which doesn't stress us including (for most people)...
close personal acceptance
learning and mental stimulation
at least SOME control over our environment and future
a feeling of fairness and sharing
physical labor and manual activities
some feel the need for a "larger purpose" in life

As I mentioned, there is a fairly large parameter-space in which "societies" can exist and even thrive.

Here is where I think American's interests lie, and where they aren't being met:

We potentially have enough of all of the resources required - except energy and some transition or specialty metals - to meet most of our needs and many of our wants. With proper utilization of resources, we should be able to trade in a balanced fashion for anything that we don't have.

However, we live in a sick society: the resources, control, work, and rewards are distributed unfairly and unevenly. Worse, we live in a society where we are encouraged to consume individually and compete universally, rejecting the idea that "society" even exists or needs tending, leading to a failure of communities, extended families, and nuclear families, a universal feeling of never "belonging" (progressive atomization) and an inability to evaluate how our "society" is functioning and redirect its organization, if necessary. "They" say that you can only lengthen your life by (1) giving up smoking or (2) reducing stress. Just look at the number of stressed-out people on our society: I think it's fair to say that our dysfunctional approach is, literally, killing us.

We've lost the "meme" that would make us prosper: hard work for fair compensation. It's been hijacked by oligarchs and globalists who have not only convinced us that there is no society and that work is stupid, but that "greed is good". In this way, they can continue their parasitism without fear of reaction.

We're highly dependent on distribution technology: Any prolonged and widespread interruption of water, food, power and communication distribution, and trash and sewage removal due to solar flare, hurricane, earthquake etc. in a large city would lead to catastrophic failure.

We're too dependent on labor-saving and interaction-saving technology to the extent that we're UNHEALTHY.

Furthermore, our energy use and (in the west) water use is unsustainable. In fact, we're chewing up our natural environment ... reducing the variety of species and numbers of wild plants and animals to the extent that our ecosystems are becoming fragile and less productive.

Our infrastructure is crumbling ... has been, for decades.
We aren't well set up to resist cyber-attack. "The internet of everything" ... really?
So, this is what we need to do, overall:

We need to be as self-sustaining as possible, not only nationally but also regionally and at the urban level. Mimicking an ecosystem, there needs to be redundant producers of the same kind of product distributed into every region. It's not as money-efficient (profitable) as having one facility in Japan making the specialized plastic needed for memory chips ... redundant chemical plants, multi-purpose farms, refineries, etc require more resources to set up ... but it's not as subject to cascading failure, either.

We really, really need to restore our infrastructure AND our environment: thin forests, restore wetlands and prairies, eliminate as much as possible destructive invasive species, replenish our aquifers during wet years, rebuild roads and bridges, REALLY work on electrical distribution system which is tremendously out-of-date and overtaxed and vulnerable to cybercrime ... replace water distribution systems, renovate ... well, pretty much everything.

Make English the official language. You can't have a unified society if a significant minority don't speak the main language .... and don't want to.

Take a big step back in energy use and technology use, and a step back in population. Yes, it's less "efficient" to have a corner grocery store that you can walk to ... but we're mostly too fat and under-exercised anyway.

We need to eliminate the Fed, and fractional reserve banking. In fact, we should probably look at the way we arrange our "financial" system because it's not serving us well.

We need to have a well-practiced and highly-respected defensive military, but eliminate most of our overseas installations.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=60986

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

lol... geez Second. I think you've been spending too much time around me.

I'm not sure if you've changed tactics just to argue or my pragmatism and nihilism have been chipping away at you over the course of my sobriety.

The only change I'd make to that entire post is swapping in the word Human for American.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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It was a tactic to get Signym to tell us what America's Interests are.

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Good grief, Signym, you write too much.= SECOND

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It was a tactic to get Signym to tell us what America's Interests are- SECOND

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Good grief, Signym, you write too much.- SECOND

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Originally posted by second:
Good grief, Signym, you write too much. You're too in love with the sound of your own voice. I was thinking more along the lines that America's Interest is a short sentence: "No American shall live in Poverty." The actual figure is umpteen million. That's because there isn't an American Interest. A majority of Americans have never been poor and they have an antipathy to the poor. I don't see how you, Signym, will make hundreds of millions of Americans discover that they have something in common with the poor. It just can't happen in this American Democracy. www.census.gov/topics/income-poverty/poverty.html

I should probably give two tangible examples from today: Water was flowing in a gusher from under some old lady's house because the frozen pipe thawed. It was none of my business but I fixed that, although I did get wet and dirty this morning. Another old lady, this one I actually knew before today, needs $31,000 (actual cost is $41,911) to get her out of credit card debt. If she comes by the office with the paperwork to prove the need, I will write the check. Fat Cat Trump needs to writes some checks and get his hands and clothes dirty, too. That is how promises are kept. It is never by writing about it on twitter or running your mouth on TV like Trump does.

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Originally posted by THGRRI:

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
George Soros must have given Ted a bonus check today or something. Posting his crap all over the boards this morning I see.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Originally posted by THGRRI:

Politics May 23 2017, 5:35 pm ET
Donald Trump’s Budget Breaks These 7 Campaign Promises
by Jane C. Timm

When the White House officially unveiled its 2018 budget Tuesday, President Donald Trump's budget director took pains to insist that the blueprint represents campaign promises kept.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said that the president is making good on his vow to save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, among other things, and said that they are not kicking anyone off who needs the programs.
Play

Trump Budget Proposes Cuts From Safety Net He Promised to Protect 1:34
Yet deep cuts to many aspects of the American safety net indicate otherwise.
Here's where the president's proposal breaks his promises — and at times his own self-proposed contract — to voters.

Broken Promise #1: Trump vowed not to cut Medicaid
Trump's budget would cut Medicaid by a lot, despite the president telling the Daily Signal days before launching his White House bid, "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid."

The administration proposes reducing spending on Medicaid programs by more than $600 billion over the next decade, a massive cut that appears to go on top of $839 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the House health care bill Trump is supporting.

Mulvaney insists that the proposed reduction in spending isn't a cut — it's simply growing less than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the needs of the program to be. "There are no Medicaid cuts in terms of what normal human beings would call cuts, we are not spending less money than we did the year before," Mulvaney said.

Broken Promise #2: Trump said he wouldn't cut Social Security
Trump's budget proposes slashing the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), a $31.4 billion change to the program that pays monthly benefits to over 10 million disabled individuals under the retirement age.
Mulvaney argued that SSDI isn't "what most people would consider to be Social Security" and said he would "hope" less people receive the program once they remove individuals who "should not" be getting it. It's unclear how the administration determined there is that much fraud in the system.

Broken Promise #3: Trump said he'd fully fund the border wall
The president promised to fully fund a border wall, with plans to make Mexico pay for it later, in his "Contract With the American Voter." The president's budget would allocate $2.6 billion for planning, designing, and constructing the border wall and its surrounding securities, but Republican leaders estimate the wall could cost as much as $15 billion.

"While we did not get as much money as we wanted for 2017 omnibus we did get a lot," Mulvaney said. "We are going to continue to press on."
Broken Promise #4: Trump promised to cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities

This is another contract promise. Trump's administration has tried to restrict funding to so-called "sanctuary" cities — jurisdiction that don't enforce federal immigration priorities and cooperate fully with federal authorities — but their efforts were halted by the courts.

This budget doesn't include any kind of limit on federal funding, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions narrowed the scope of Trump's executive order on the issue in a memo Monday.

Broken Promise #5: Trump said he would increase funding for treatment of PTSD
Trump's budget would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the budget proposal doesn't appear to focus money on PTSD or mental health issues.
It would, however, slash $3.2 billion from the "individual unemployability" benefit, which the budget says will be "modernized." The program allows the VA to more fully compensate disabled veterans, including those with PTSD, whose disability renders them unemployable.

Broken Promise #6: Trump told police union leaders he'd find more funding for training Trump promised resources for training in his voter contract, as well. This budget aims to increase funding for more border agents and immigration judges, increased immigrant detentions, and fighting the opioid crisis, but it does not earmark additional funds for training police.

Broken Promise #7: Trump promised to bring down the debt "fairly quickly"
Barring the kind of hyperbolic growth Trump has promised and economists have disputed, Trump's budget would do little to combat the national debt. Rather, it would potentially increase it.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/donald-trump-s-budget-bre
aks-these-7-campaign-promises-n763731

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Originally posted by THGRRI:

Politics May 23 2017, 5:35 pm ET
Donald Trump’s Budget Breaks These 7 Campaign Promises
by Jane C. Timm

When the White House officially unveiled its 2018 budget Tuesday, President Donald Trump's budget director took pains to insist that the blueprint represents campaign promises kept.

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said that the president is making good on his vow to save Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, among other things, and said that they are not kicking anyone off who needs the programs.
Play

Trump Budget Proposes Cuts From Safety Net He Promised to Protect 1:34
Yet deep cuts to many aspects of the American safety net indicate otherwise.
Here's where the president's proposal breaks his promises — and at times his own self-proposed contract — to voters.

Broken Promise #1: Trump vowed not to cut Medicaid
Trump's budget would cut Medicaid by a lot, despite the president telling the Daily Signal days before launching his White House bid, "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid."

The administration proposes reducing spending on Medicaid programs by more than $600 billion over the next decade, a massive cut that appears to go on top of $839 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the House health care bill Trump is supporting.

Mulvaney insists that the proposed reduction in spending isn't a cut — it's simply growing less than the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the needs of the program to be. "There are no Medicaid cuts in terms of what normal human beings would call cuts, we are not spending less money than we did the year before," Mulvaney said.

Broken Promise #2: Trump said he wouldn't cut Social Security
Trump's budget proposes slashing the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), a $31.4 billion change to the program that pays monthly benefits to over 10 million disabled individuals under the retirement age.
Mulvaney argued that SSDI isn't "what most people would consider to be Social Security" and said he would "hope" less people receive the program once they remove individuals who "should not" be getting it. It's unclear how the administration determined there is that much fraud in the system.

Broken Promise #3: Trump said he'd fully fund the border wall
The president promised to fully fund a border wall, with plans to make Mexico pay for it later, in his "Contract With the American Voter." The president's budget would allocate $2.6 billion for planning, designing, and constructing the border wall and its surrounding securities, but Republican leaders estimate the wall could cost as much as $15 billion.

"While we did not get as much money as we wanted for 2017 omnibus we did get a lot," Mulvaney said. "We are going to continue to press on."
Broken Promise #4: Trump promised to cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities

This is another contract promise. Trump's administration has tried to restrict funding to so-called "sanctuary" cities — jurisdiction that don't enforce federal immigration priorities and cooperate fully with federal authorities — but their efforts were halted by the courts.

This budget doesn't include any kind of limit on federal funding, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions narrowed the scope of Trump's executive order on the issue in a memo Monday.

Broken Promise #5: Trump said he would increase funding for treatment of PTSD
Trump's budget would increase funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the budget proposal doesn't appear to focus money on PTSD or mental health issues.
It would, however, slash $3.2 billion from the "individual unemployability" benefit, which the budget says will be "modernized." The program allows the VA to more fully compensate disabled veterans, including those with PTSD, whose disability renders them unemployable.

Broken Promise #6: Trump told police union leaders he'd find more funding for training Trump promised resources for training in his voter contract, as well. This budget aims to increase funding for more border agents and immigration judges, increased immigrant detentions, and fighting the opioid crisis, but it does not earmark additional funds for training police.

Broken Promise #7: Trump promised to bring down the debt "fairly quickly"
Barring the kind of hyperbolic growth Trump has promised and economists have disputed, Trump's budget would do little to combat the national debt. Rather, it would potentially increase it.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/donald-trump-s-budget-bre
aks-these-7-campaign-promises-n763731

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