General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[MMIX]

vex, you seem to be forgetting that this is the tRump century. Your ideas about legitimate power lying with government sound so quaintly old-fashioned, like that Victorians covering up piano legs in the interests of modesty; which is another fake fact. Government power, in what for the moment are still nominally free democracies, will only obtain until someone comes along with the will, guile and cash to stage a buy out. Read some Hobbes, try the Leviathan, you can see the thought processes behind the development of our modern beliefs about power. Power in its essence is neither legitimate nor illegitimate it is merely wielded.
Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

also Nigel is right re. the order/disorder thingy. Discordians have spent years mulling over this shit. Who knew we would end up on the white hot edge of political thinking?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

vex, you seem to be forgetting that this is the tRump century. Your ideas about legitimate power lying with government sound so quaintly old-fashioned, like that Victorians covering up piano legs in the interests of modesty; which is another fake fact. Government power, in what for the moment are still nominally free democracies, will only obtain until someone comes along with the will, guile and cash to stage a buy out. Read some Hobbes, try the Leviathan, you can see the thought processes behind the development of our modern beliefs about power. Power in its essence is neither legitimate nor illegitimate it is merely wielded.
Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

also Nigel is right re. the order/disorder thingy. Discordians have spent years mulling over this shit. Who knew we would end up on the white hot edge of political thinking?

I meant "legitimate" facetiously and in the general consensus that if power is going to be wielded, it must be done so through the government. "Legitimacy" isn't a real thing, it's just a stamp on the exercise of power. You're right that who controls the stamp at any time isn't controlled by the government itself, especially not since the government's own mass of power has been under sustained attacked for half a century. But we're not yet at the point where power can be directly exercised without that stamp of legitimacy with complete impunity for very long.

I'm not talking so much about how the system was designed, but about how it functionally works. The government does have the advantage of perceived legitimacy which acts as a force multiplier for hard power, whereas a throng of brownshirts don't. So it's the brownshirts' objective to usurp the "legitimacy" of government power in order to curbstomp their way to actual power. Just like it's every competing political or economic group's objective to ensnare the government's "legitimate" power and influence into orbit around their own. Sure, someday we might get to a point where corporate armies enact company policy despite the legality of doing so, but more likely is that they will just make it legal in the first place by influencing "legitimate" policy and removing the bureaucratic obstacles.

[MMIX]

You know, if we'd been having this conversation last year I would have totally agreed with you. In my wilful liberal naivete I don't think I had ever really though that the purchasing, lock stock and barrel, of a modern western democracy was actually a possible outcome of, well anything really. My political gamut ran from get elected and run with the current system to overthrow this system it sucks lets try to get it right next time. Being "Owned" in a literal monetary sense never actually occurred to me as being a thing which might happen. I kind of thought that when it came to politics the aim was to win the game not to buy the casino.

So from where I'm currently looking:-

Sure, someday we might get to a point where corporate armies enact company policy despite the legality of doing so, but more likely is that they will just make it legal in the first place by influencing "legitimate" policy and removing the bureaucratic obstacles.

you have got your tenses wrong

[Cain]

Trump thinks some of the recent wave of threats and vandalism directed at Jews may be "false flags"

https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/836653660864147456

[Cain]

Trump thinks some of the recent wave of threats and vandalism directed at Jews may be "false flags"

https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/836653660864147456

Buried in this article is mention that the investigation is focusing on an overseas origin to the calls

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/28/us/bomb-threats-jewish-centers-jcc/

This is the first mention of any such overseas angle, and coming so shortly after Trump's comments...I'm suspicious.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Trump thinks some of the recent wave of threats and vandalism directed at Jews may be "false flags"

https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/836653660864147456

Buried in this article is mention that the investigation is focusing on an overseas origin to the calls

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/28/us/bomb-threats-jewish-centers-jcc/

This is the first mention of any such overseas angle, and coming so shortly after Trump's comments...I'm suspicious.

Yeah, I'm thinking that if they weren't before, they will be now.

[Cain]

My initial thinking was that this was a chan operation.  It's low cost, fairly low risk and undeniably effective.

According to Haaretz and Buzzfeed, the threats have used online anonymity services and computer produced voices to actually phone in the threats.  That also means the threats could come from - and look like they come from - anywhere in the world, even though a good 90% of channers are Anglosphere (which matches up with some of the earlier calls also targeting Canadian and British Jewish schools).  We also know /pol/ is basically daycare for baby Stormfronters, so this wouldn't be exactly surprising.

There could be an Islamic angle to this, but it seems somewhat unlikely - if you're angry at Jews and a Muslim, Hamas and ISIS are still recruiting, last I heard.  But it's not impossible - Junaid Hussain was formerly a member of TeaMp0ison before he went off to head up the ISIS Cyber Caliphate (and was subsequently missiled until he was dead).  TeaMp0ison had crossover with the Anonymous hacktivist wing, and it's not impossible that there has been further cross-pollination and adoption of tactics.

But the headstones...well that has to be internal.  No way around that.  I doubt someone is going to fly in from WhereverTheHell to smash up some graveyards.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

[Salty]

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Just in case you didn't want to sleep comfortably yu might try this piece too,
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage?CMP=share_btn_tw

Regarding the part about manipulation vis social media, I'd just like to say that I knew social media was evil from the start

Then why are you here?

Forums are social media, you assleak.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

I mean modern social media. Twitter, facebook, instagram, etc.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I mean modern social media. Twitter, facebook, instagram, etc.

They are no more modern than this forum.

You're demonizing popularity, and that's just dumb.

[Salty]

You should have warned us.

[Cain]

It's worth noting that Mercer may be overstating his case.  He owns Cambridge Analytica who have claimed - without much evidence - to have had a significant impact on Trump's campaign.  It's great advertising, saying you helped a sure-fire loser win.

[Cain]

Lets recall, Cambridge Analytica initially worked for Ted Cruz.