US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[vienna]

The latest in the series of editorials by the Los Angeles Times (BTW, the initial four-part series has been expanded to six parts):

Trump’s War on Journalism:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-e...on-journalism/




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[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Dowly

Yes, Sulla is Sulla. But what does he have got to do with so-called "Marian reforms" of the military?

Eh - you are right. I fell victim to my memory. Sulla was initially quaestor under Marius, later he met Marius again when Sulla marched into Rome and demanded to be given a troop command that Marius had intervened for giving it to somebody else, Sulla claimed power and removed his political opponents and Marius had to flee.

Due to this crossing of both men's lives and the temporal closeness, I mixed them up. Can happen easily with Roman history, which in the main consists of nothing but names, more names, and then even more.

And I am not even certain that I do not mix it up again alrady - mistaking Marius with his son marius the younger.

Anyhow, you know damn well which military reform I was referring to - at that time and era, there was just this one, and the names Sulla and Marius practically mark the same spot on the timesline.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Just in: Steve Bannon loses his NSC seat

seems like much ado about nothing, much like the handwringing when he was appointed on the principals committee.

Apparently, he rarely attended meetings and even though he is no longer on the NSC, he can still attend when he wants.

we'll have to see whether it actually means anything.

[Skybird]

Certainly nobody expects the WH to say "We gave him the boot" even if that would have been what happened. They always weasel on occasions like this. And since most of what Bannon is aiming for, is domestic policy ground, the loss of the NSC seat does not mean he looses influence on Trump. Maybe his sacking is part of a deal Trump had to do with somebody.

[vienna]

Bannon has come under fire from other members of the Trump administration for his heavy handed interference in the activities and decision-making of other departments and sections. When Michael Flynn was fired as National Security Adviser, Trump's first choice of a replacement was Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a retired Navy Seal and a former Deputy Commander of the United States Central Command. When Harward turned down Trump's offer, it was reported a major reason was Bannon's insistance on vetting and approving all of Harward's appointees to the National Security staff; it was reported Bannon even vetoed some individuals he, Harward, specifically wanted on his team; it was also reported Harward referred to the situation in the Trump White House as a 'fertilizer' sandwich (I cleaned it up a bit). I wonder if, perhaps, McMaster put the screws to the Trump team to boot Bannon; Trump can ill-afford to be embarrassed by having yet another National Security Adviser bail on him...

In a related matter, Flynn's son, who was also given the boot by Trump eariler, has lashed out about the removal of Bannon saying Bannon is "more loyal" to Trump than McMaster:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...r-bannon-trump

To quote GW Bush, "That was some weird 'fertilizer" (cleaned up a bit, again)...



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[Platapus]

Lets hope that Trump does not borrow tactics from Russia's history. Be a shame if Bannon catches "the flu". <gulp>

I guess we will know if suddenly Bannon disappears from past photographs.

[vienna]

Maybe, if Trump asks nicely and with respect, there's a guy who could take care of the 'little annoyance' that is Bannon for him:







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[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Lets hope that Trump does not borrow tactics from Russia's history. Be a shame if Bannon catches "the flue". <gulp>

I guess we will know if suddenly Bannon disappears from past photographs.

I don't think that they would use the 1930s Stalinist methods today.

Political murder in Russia is viewed as a bad practice, much like anywhere else. If you want to destroy your oponent you get him imprisoned and you don't even need to break the word of law - laws in Russia are very strict and complex (and often contradictory) so most people are bound to violate something on the path to greatness.

But I am sure in the future we would adopt even softer, western methods, when you do not need to imprison a man to destroy him, but just initiate a smear campaighn in mass media.

[Bilge_Rat]

well if you keep track of the Trump WH, its not hard to see that the one with the most influence is Jared Kushner.

My guess is that Kushner was behind the move to remove Bannon from the NSC. Whether it means Bannon is on his way out or whether it is part of the ongoing turf war between Bannon and Kushner is hard to say at this point.

Bannon has always been in the background, so it is hard to know what is his real level of influence. His real perceived force seems to be elections/domestic politics, much like Karl Rove. Putting him on the NSC to begin with did not really make sense.

The only one who really seems to have been downgraded is Kellyanne Conway.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

The only one who really seems to have been downgraded is Kellyanne Conway.

Wow! I had not even noticed ... I guess it's because I did not miss her

[vienna]

The fifth of the six Los Angeles Times editorial series on Trump:

Conspiracy Theorist in Chief:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-e...rist-in-chief/



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[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Can happen easily with Roman history, which in the main consists of nothing but names, more names, and then even more.

Not that easily, when we're talking about an era where there were only a handful of "big names", and a mistake such as this (which you have done before also) isn't easy to make if one is even slightly familiar with the subject. Gaius Marius is a big name in both the history of the Late Republic and in Roman Military history in general.

That you decided to add bunch of extra, unneeded information to your reply, such as the rundown of relationship between Sulla and Marius and Marius the Younger who is rarely mentioned when talking of the era due to his unimportancy leads me to believe you had to check this from e.g. Wikipedia (not a bad thing) and to further show your "level of knowledge" you decided to add this extra stuff in.

You also did this with Augustus, adding information such as he was also known as Octavian and was Caesar's grandnephew. That is all extremely basic information about perhaps the most famous Emperor of the Roman Empire. That you added the extra, again, leads me to believe you had to check who the guy is and only added the extra to "show your knowledge".

I've seen this happen many, many times over the years all over the internet. People trying to look smart by saying something, then adding something completely unneeded to further show their "knowledge". To me, it just screams "I just checked it on the wiki!".

My purpose is not to embarrass you Skybird, but to try to make you understand, that your own knowledge of the subject appears to be seriously lacking and therefore you simply cannot assess whether what Engels writes is correct or not. As much as his view supports your dream of seeing the EU come crashing down, surely you understand that blindly believing his views without the needed knowledge to confirm them as true is foolish?

[Skybird]

As a matter of fact I have admitted before repeatedly in past weeks that I am no intimate expert on Roman history. My mistake with Sulla and Marius simply is mental mixing up of two men's names who both were very influential and both lived at the same time and even crossed their live's ways, and played major roles in the Roman government history and internal power struggles of Rome at that time. The background info I took not from Wipipedia, although right now I found that German wikipedia holds this info as well, but I took it from an old history encyclopedia I have from my school years 30 years ago, to check both names quickly after you brought this up.

My recent interest in the fall of the roman republic 1.0 is due to the book I referred to several times in past week. That book currently is not available to me to check back withn it, since my mother lend it and now reads it herself - on the other side of this town. Else I would have quoted from it directly.

Now go on, make a big deal of it and balk at the wind. I stick to my admiration for Engel'S book comparing the fall of the first republic with the status of the EU today, his arguments are damn solid and reasonable and empiracally convincing (his outlook on how the EU might move, or better: why it may move there - towards an authoritative, imperial order - is slightly less convincing, and a bit naive maybe).

Just in case you forgot what that was about:

German LINK
French LINK

And here is the corrected version of what I wrote in this thread here, where you linked up, I print the correction in bold. Tell me, is it that major a thing? Does it change anything in what I said or referred to? The Marian reforms did not end with Marius, btw, the legions and their relation to the field commanders (and thus the latter's political power) kept on changing in the decades to come. And then there is the history of the Pretorians who started to brew their own soup.

Augustine may have brought back stability, law and order to Rome after the collapse of the first republic. But the price was a hefty one: military dictatorship, a massive decline of freedom, an imperial redesign of the political system, an establishing of heritable political power, and a massive loss of former civil liberties and freedoms. But this is what we all head for once again in Europe, once the EU has fallen apart - and it is set to fall apart for sure like the first republic, and for almost the same reasons. The parrallels are breathtaking.

But there is one big difference: the pax romana following was possible last but not least due to the military power of Rome after Marius's reforms and the professionalization of the army. Europea today however has developed a so strong pacifism and demilitarised basic attitude that one can hardly imagine that Europe would project military power to enforce its demands outside its imperial core and periphery in a comparable fashion like Rome was willing - and sometimes, though not always, actually carrying out - to do. An enforced pax europaea for exampel towards the ME or Russia, is hardly imaginable. The substantial willingess to use physical force is much stronger in the orient, than in the modern occident.

Sulla followed more or less on Marius, after he chased him away. We talk about one and the same era, and the similiar timestamp in the history line.

And isn'T it ironic that you accuse me - in parts correctly - to not have a deep knowledge on Roman history so that I could not - so you claim - assess Engel'S description (Engels seems to be seen as an academic heavyweight and is professor for Roman, Greek and Seleukide history, so what does he know...) - but you imply you know that his descriptions are misled although you do not know his book? The book is still not in english. French in 2012, German in 2015 or '16. You only understood that he criticises the EU, sees it way of forming up critical - and that is before anything else what triggered your appearance here, Dowly. Sorry, but to take on Engels, you would need to know what he actually has written, and how he argues and what he bases his statements on. I only gave a very brief glimpse, a brief summary of very few, small parts of it, or better: I described his method of using the Eurobarometer's items to structure his comparison. I did not want to translate the whole book's 500 pages chapter by chapter.

P.S. The part on Augustus I gave by knowledge for sure. It is profound info, and I gave it only to make certain that no further misunderstandings arose regarding which person I meant. Some tiem ago, when I first mentioned Engels'S book, Subsim'S August here in the forum in one reply referred to my post and referred to my mentioning of Augustus (as Augustus, btw) as "Augustine" - and so I thought "Ooops, did not know that, so in English Augustus is Augustine, I learned something new". Like Aristotelis in English is not Aristoteles, but Aristotle. And so I started to use the name Augustine. That profane it was!

[vienna]

I don't know...

...Roman history is all Greek to me...

The sixth and last in the Los Angeles Times editorial series on Trump (more California-centric than the others):

California Fights Back:

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-e...a-fights-back/




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[Skybird]

Originally Posted by vienna

I don't know...

...Roman history is all Greek to me...

"My God - its full of names..." (from: Famous Last Words, vol. 2001)