Lizard On A Rock

We’ve all heard the barbs slung back & forth about the respective candidates and their fitness to be Commander in Chief.  It’s a valid argument, and of course, something that needs to be considered very carefully.  National Security is certainly a major component of The Presidency, and the armed forces are vital to that end.

Ok, so let’s contemplate Mr. Trump in that role for a moment.

Isn’t the military all about honor, ethics, truth, & sacrifice?  He’s demonstrated in lurid detail his severe lacking of any of these traits.  Virtually EVERY national security advisor has come out against the idea of Mr. Trump being in charge of our military.  A letter signed by 50 top advisors for both republican and democrat administrations has to be viewed as a serious repudiation of his fitness for the job, a letter that could hardly be discounted as simply partisan politics.  That, in and of itself, should be sufficient to keep him out of the office.

But, who are these ‘experts’, and why should we care what they say?  After all, Mr. Trump has assured us he’d be “great”, and our military would be “fantastic”, and “the best ever” under him.

“Believe me!!”.

Ok, let’s recap a few of Mr. Trumps statements about our military:

He’s said our military is horrible, decimated, decrepit, never wins, etc..  In other words, he’s been very critical of the military, to the point where he even said “… I know more about ISIS than our generals do”…..   His stance towards the personnel of all levels currently in the military is he’ll essentially be coming in as the new coach for the Bad News Bears to shape up the last place team.

And we’ll all be lucky he’s there.

“I’m gonna make our  military so strong again, nobody will mess with us!”.

Um, ok, sounds great, but…..  there’s one teensy weensy little point that kind of seems to have been overlooked:

The United States military is 100% voluntary!

So, Mr. Trump, if you’re president, yes, you can spend the country into an even bigger economic hole by buying all sorts of hardware like planes & ships & bombs & nukes.  But, since only the old white guys voted to get you into office, and you managed to completely piss off every other group, including the military, who is going to fly the planes, skipper the ships, and fire the guns at those who you wish to defeat in your war on globalism?  People enlisted in an all volunteer military, the overwhelming majority of which take issue with most of your positions regarding foreign AND domestic policy (yes I know, nobody really knows what those policies are, but that’s a subject for another discussion) are very likely to opt out of being part of your fighting force.  Especially since you’ve voiced complete disregard for many basic tenets of military honor such as the Geneva Convention, NATO, The Constitution, and general respect for the lives of other people.  Of course, your politicizing Vets is repugnant and your feigned regard for them, as a group, isn’t supported by the facts either.

Of all the various institutions on this planet, the US military is one where honor is revered above all else.  As it should be.

So, I guess my long winded question is:  How can a guy command the largest all volunteer military in the world when he has not only not earned their respect, but quite the opposite?

Isn’t this how mutinies and coups happen?

Maybe he’ll be forced reinstate the draft, which would be the ultimate irony since he successfully dodged it himself.

No commentary needed, just read it.

pretty Presidential, huh?

Every one of his tweets all in one place,  all linked to when he posted them.

Kind of sickening to read, actually.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html?ref=politics

Remember Oliver North?

Yeah, THAT guy!  Military, defender of freedom & the Constitution.

Set aside his problems from decades ago and just consider what he said to Hannity this am in response to Trump’s speech yesterday:

“If you’re a critic of what this man just proposed then you don’t belong in the voting process.”

Say whaaaat??  If you don’t agree with the candidate, then you shouldn’t be allowed to vote?

another one to think about for awhile.  Amazing.

couldn’t let this go…..

Trump just tweeted:

@realdonaldtrump

It is not “freedom of the press” when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it is completely false!

Think about that for awhile.

Just let it percolate & sink in.

I’m betting it’ll be the next “thing”.

guess I’m still obsessing over this a bit…..

So, a quick thought exercise seems to be in order.

Forget which “side” you’re on, and consider what we’re hearing in the news pretty much since Trump got into this race.  Seemingly weekly, sometimes even daily, the press goes nuts over the latest statements made by Trump.  We’ve heard all the gaffes, (putting it politely) and stupid stuff he’s said (to be more honest) that has made headlines virtually every day.

The respective camps square off & debate on every news show, internet sites and even the tabloids.  Everybody gets mired in the minutiae of every detail of what he said by taking what he actually said (verbatim) and trying to assign various meanings to what they “think” he meant, even when it disagrees with his own explanation.  The talking heads go nuts and burn airtime supplanting anything else that might be important in the news that isn’t Donald.  Then, there’s even argument about what the talking heads were trying to say when they were trying to clean up his latest mess.

It’s no different than Kim Kardashian posting her latest selfie of her naked butt to “break the internet”.    Don’t forget, The Donald is a reality star, same as Kardashian, and is the  first to admit “there’s no such thing as bad press”.  He lives for the attention.

But, that’s not the point.  Really.

Take a few steps back, and ‘zoom out’, if you will.   Having a constant debate about “what he said” vs “what he meant” does absolutely nothing to clarify if he’d be a good president, quite the contrary, actually.  Further, the message gets lost in the noise, which is the opposite of what a candidate would hope to accomplish with his/her messaging.

Whether or you’re an Obama fan or not, one thing that is indisputable is he is a very intelligent, articulate and thoughtful orator.  Whether you agree with him or not, you know what he said AND what he meant.  The discussions are always about the substance of the message, not trying to argue about what he may or may not have meant.  And, NEVER is it about who he offended THIS time.

Shouldn’t effective communication be required of the President?  Don’t you enjoy listening to what the President has to say and understanding what it is he’s trying to say and then being able to have a constructive discussion about the merits of the message?  Why in the world would anyone want to have constant debate about what the hell he meant by what he just said?  Is it a good idea to have a president that sparks outrage every time he opens his mouth?  It’s nonproductive noise that diminishes by obscuring completely any message that may have been conveyed.

Maybe The Donald likes the vagaries of his message, it deflects scrutiny of the message itself.

In the end, the only thing in the forefront of my mind after listening to The Donald is a quote from W.C. Fields:

“If you can’t dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

ahh, politics….. good fun, isn’t it?

The one  thing I wanted to comment on that seemed to be prevalent in the news this week is all the noise about the media and their supposed bias.  Trump seems to be screaming loudest about the ‘liberal media”, the “dishonest media”, they’re the “lowest form of life”….. & on & on.   The charges aren’t really new, of course, and I’m not going to engage in debating the particulars, there are 1000’s of articles that address the various issues, I’m simply talking about the claim of media bias in and of itself.

I call bullshit.  It’s a cop-out.  A smokescreen.

Back when newspapers were the dominating source of information for the public, I guess there could be an argument made about how reporting might be biased simply due to the relative lack of diversity in sources available to most people.  A handful of newspapers were available, till sometime in the 40’s & 50’s when people also had a couple of tv stations which aired a few news stories each evening.  In essence, the news ended up being filtered before being disseminated through a relatively small number of reporters & broadcasters, so the charge of bias had some validity in the realm of possibility whether actually true in the final analysis or not.

But, beating the drum about it STILL?

Are they (pick your whichever “they” you like, any one will do) really suggesting that people are incapable of making a well informed, intelligent decision because of any ingrained bias a particular media outlet may have?

I’m sorry, but that claim just doesn’t hold water in this age of non stop information saturation.  I’m not going to get into a critique of  the various news outlets and whether or not they put any sort of “spin” on things because it’s really up to the viewer to make that judgement.

Which is really the point, after all.

Since the time it takes for any person’s Iphone video of any event to make it into the news cycle can be measured in seconds, if not less (realtime, often) the idea that the truth can still be squelched on a regular basis to effectively steer public perception is simply absurd.  As it applies to candidates in an election specifically, virtually every utterance is captured on video and disseminated widely.  All one has to do is watch/listen to the speeches, interviews, and public appearances to form an intelligent opinion and ignore the commentary that goes along with it.  The pundits and ‘armchair quarterbacking’ is simply a vehicle for confirming an opinion at best, or entertainment at worst.

Using Trump as an example– because it’s  so easy— think of it this way:  Listen to his rally stump speeches.  Listen to his tv interviews.  Listen to his big convention speech.  Then, change the channel quick to Game of Thrones before the pundits start talking.  Is there really not enough content & color there to form an opinion without the “biased” “horrible” “dishonest” media influencing your opinion?  Were the words coming out of his mouth not adequate to get a feel about who he is?  Do you have questions regarding the veracity of anything he said?  Remember that thing called the “internet”?  Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., are your friends– use them.  There’s no excuse for being uninformed since the variety and sources of information are all there to be used which relegates the claim of biased media moot by definition.

If you sit in your armchair and do nothing but watch Faux News, then you deserve what you get.

Same goes for reading this blog…..

damn thing’s bustin’ my chops…..I guess this is progress!