Hillary Clinton: I Used to Love Her

[Stavros]

Words do matter. With that I agree. But unfortunately for anyone who wishes to speak to future readers or even readers in another demographic, the meanings of words are in constant flux. “Decimate” used to mean to diminish your enemy’s number by one tenth; now it means to completely obliterate them. The average American (and I suspect the average Brit as well) has trouble reading Shakespeare (if they bother to do so anymore) because of the many linguistic shifts that have occurred between Elizabethan and modern times. Reading Chaucer is almost impossible.

You are right, when someone uses the phrase “the lesser of two evils”, we cannot be certain what they mean by ‘evil’, nor can we be certain what is meant by “so and so has been demonized.” For that matter, I’m never certain what the waiter means when I’m asked, “Would you like cream for your coffee.” We can only do our best, and in matters of importance we should curb our urge to exaggerate (although I do not think it’s an exaggeration to say Trump is a misogynist, a narcissist, a manipulative liar, or a cheat).

Words also matter, not only for the meanings they convey but for their emotional impact and shock value. Imagine the dissonance that reverberated throughout our collective brains when Trump announced he was never a Birther - that he was in fact the one who deliberately put an end to Birtherism! That whopper must’ve bought him several million hours of free air time. The fact that it was so obviously false and had such an ridiculous twist made it first class entertainment. To those ready to receive his message, it seemed deeper than it was: a metaphor for how Trump will simply sweep away all conventional restrictions and free us from liberal scorn and confirm us in our prejudices. Truth no longer matters; going viral is what counts. We no longer speak in sentences, we speak in memes.

How wonderfully dull it would be if we all said, “After considerable research and honest deliberation, I chose the candidate with the more promising policies and the better character for the job at hand.” At this point I so want to be living in that world. In that world I have a mouth; I can communicate. In this world, I’m all but mute.

We can't go on like this, living in a virtual world where our words are filtered through online portals that only exist through anonymity, a lack of responsibility and a 'so what?' attitude to reams of abuse directed at conservatives, republicans, democrats, men, women -well just about everyone. The ironic consequence of the internet snooping our Masters insist upon (now legal in the UK) is that the online terrorists who threaten to castrate, decapitate and incinerate people they don't like, may one day soon have to appear in person to explain why they said what they said, and dismissing it as 'just a joke, mate' might not be, should not be enough-
Police are investigating a tweet calling for someone to “Jo Cox” the Conservative MP Anna Soubry.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...mp-anna-soubry

I have to be an optimist, and believe that as the next four to five years evolve, a different narrative and a different language will evolve with it, and that the majority of people will agree that we can do better than this, think more clearly about real issues, and not get lost in a miasma of prejudice and hate that destroys more than it creates. Just last night in a prosperous suburb of London, one of the UK's wealthiest men and once upon a time Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith, lost his seat in the House of Commons to a shock victory for the Liberal Democrats. Goldsmith resigned 'in principle' when the Government proposed to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport near Goldsmith's constituency, standing as an 'Independent' to oppose that policy. The election however became consumed by the EU referendum result as Richmond voted heavily for Remain. But it was also a rebuttal to Goldsmith who failed to defeat the Labour candidate for Mayor of London -Sadiq Khan- having accused this man of being soft on 'Islamic terrorism'. Richmond, at least, proves that not everyone in the UK, Europe or the USA is crazy for the crazies.

I agree the worry with Trump is that he himself and some of the men he has appointed are 'part of the problem' we have right now, Bannon in particular. But most of these people have never known what the reality of real power is like, Trump most of all. It is one thing to consider a deal that returns 7% in dollars over 5 years, and a deal that results in 7% of humanity losing their property and maybe even their lives in a week, and that just within the USA.

And rest assured, Trish, a post as eloquent and elegant as yours does not make you mute!

[blackchubby38]

If you're keeping score at home, this is the list of the people that the Clinton camp is blaming for her losing the election:

James Comey
Russia
President Obama
Huma Abedin

[bluesoul]

Huma Abedin

why her? all she ever did was marry carlos danger, put up with his lothario doppelganger anthony weiner (while probably giving him some amazing fellatio with that generous overbite) then suffer through the embarrassment of his failed run for mayor of new york

btw: one thing i found really funny. alex jones found out facebook considers him fakenews

p.s. i'm unsure whether i find huma abedin attractive or not. she's certainly "not bad" and does at least elicit desires of giving her a facial but i remain indifferent when considering coitus

[blackchubby38]

why her? all she ever did was marry carlos danger, put up with his lothario doppelganger anthony weiner (while probably giving him some amazing fellatio with that generous overbite) then suffer through the embarrassment of his failed run for mayor of new york

btw: one thing i found really funny. alex jones found out facebook considers him fakenews

p.s. i'm unsure whether i find huma abedin attractive or not. she's certainly "not bad" and does at least elicit desires of giving her a facial but i remain indifferent when considering coitus

I'm guessing because she didn't divorce him the first time around and seemed to be standing by her man during his campaign for mayor of NYC. On a side note, I would take Weiner as mayor over DeBlasio in a New York minute.

I think Huma is attractive and would consider coitus in a New York minute.

[Stavros]

I think Huma is attractive and would consider coitus in a New York minute.

What is a 'New York Minute'?

Meanwhile the NYT has published an extensive account of the DNC hacking with strong claims it was a Russian operation, being Putin's revenge on Hillary Clinton for claiming he fixed the 2011 elections in Russia, plus his belief the Security Council led him astray over Libya. What is really pertinent is that an aide of John Podesta instead of marking a phishing email as 'illegitimate' left it at 'legitimate', because history often shows that cock-ups have played a key role in dramatic incidents. The report also raises questions about the honesty of Julian Assange and Wikileaks which to me has now been so compromised as to make its 'revelations' unreliable.
The NYT report for those who haven't seen it is here-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us...=top-news&_r=1

[blackchubby38]

What is a 'New York Minute'?

Meanwhile the NYT has published an extensive account of the DNC hacking with strong claims it was a Russian operation, being Putin's revenge on Hillary Clinton for claiming he fixed the 2011 elections in Russia, plus his belief the Security Council led him astray over Libya. What is really pertinent is that an aide of John Podesta instead of marking a phishing email as 'illegitimate' left it at 'legitimate', because history often shows that cock-ups have played a key role in dramatic incidents. The report also raises questions about the honesty of Julian Assange and Wikileaks which to me has now been so compromised as to make its 'revelations' unreliable.
The NYT report for those who haven't seen it is here-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us...=top-news&_r=1

New York Minute:

A New York minute is an instant. Or as Johnny Carson once said, it's the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn.

It appears to have originated in Texas around 1967. It is a reference to the frenzied and hectic pace of New Yorkers' lives. A New Yorker does in an instant what a Texan would take a minute to do.

[Stavros]

New York Minute:
A New York minute is an instant. Or as Johnny Carson once said, it's the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn.
It appears to have originated in Texas around 1967. It is a reference to the frenzied and hectic pace of New Yorkers' lives. A New Yorker does in an instant what a Texan would take a minute to do.

How odd, because I thought a 'New York Minute' -guessing, obviously- is what the cab driver on W28th tells you when you ask at 6pm how long it will take to get to Lincoln Centre...enough time for a head in the back with the Brazilian Amazon you are taking to the Met...

[broncofan]

If you're keeping score at home, this is the list of the people that the Clinton camp is blaming for her losing the election:

James Comey
Russia
President Obama
Huma Abedin

I think it's fair to blame Comey and Russia. The exposure of all of one candidate's private correspondence while the other candidate's correspondence remains untouched is surely unprecedented. Hillary had the public and right wing media tearing apart every private email sent between her and her staff for months on end.

Can you even imagine if we'd had every private correspondence between Trump and his team? For instance, I wonder what they were saying internally after it became clear that Melania plagiarized Michelle Obama. I wonder what sorts of emails Trump received that caused him to use his twitter account less. Almost anything a team of political advisers says internally to control the candidate's message is going to look bad if it's leaked during that election. Even in a team of people whose professionalism cannot be impugned the release of private correspondence is devastating.

[handsumjack]

Not one of my issues.. But would like to have made it a 3 way with her and Markie Post. I heard Markie and Hillary had a hot thing going until Bill wanted to watch.

[MrFanti]

Hillary lost because Democrats were in general, sick of establishment politicians. This is why Bernie Sanders shot up in popularity because he was an anti-establishment candidate. Trump is an anti-establishment individual hence his rise in popularity because Republicans were also sick of establishment politicians too.

Now here's the kicker. If the DNC had not interfered with the primaries and manipulated them in Hillary's favor, we might have seen a Sanders/Trump battle to which I believe Sanders would have won and defeated Trump!

Something else that the Hillary camp didn't take into account were the portion of Sanders supporters that flat out did not like Hillary and went Trump instead.