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Oh I don't let fear run my way of thinking, I'm far too cynical for that. But if it's war you fear, you should really ask yourself how political opposition to the US interests would react to Donald's way of dealing. You'll have one happy Putin if he becomes president, I can tell you that. Putin is a master of political games in the old Soviet style. Donald will be handing him all the cards.
Clinton won't, she too seasoned in political backstabbing and dealing. No, Donald will at best start another war you can't win, like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. He won't have an exit plan, won't have the patience neccessary to give peace a chance. And with too many big companies with huge interests in oil and contracts to the military, if he just disbands those without ease, will get him killed. Literally, I'm afraid.
I have seen absolutely nothing from him that gives just the slightest inclination that he knows what he's doing. You keep on telling me he'll soon start to make sense, but even with his Republican nomination under his belt, he's more interested in stupid banter then actual ideas about how to run his presidency.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/us/politics/corey-lewandowski-donald-trump.html?ref=politics&_r=0
The evidence does not bear out your way of thinking on Clinton. On the contrary in fact. She's an incompetent when it comes to judgement and you will see that play out. Bernie and Trump have been right on this.
Like I say to everyone who talks about knowledge & experience (as opposed to judgement): Both Cheney and Rumsfeld were the most experienced we ever had in those roles.
Cheney was right about the risks when it came to the collapse of Iraq after Desert Storm, but just walking away wasn't an option either, as history has proven. So, just to make matters worse, George Jr. did exactly the same thing, except for the fact that there was no connection (and thus no reason to invade) between Iraq and Al Quida.
He has consitently chosen for methods which history has shown won't work, basically becoming a war criminal in the process and leaving the US with a legacy that will pester it for ages to come. You can't even find a solution for Guantanamo.
But who cares for foreign nationals, right? Trump clearly doesn't. Cheney didn't. If you want another Chaney legacy, i think you're on the wrong track, and making the world a little (lot) more unsafe.
Now I'm no fan of Hilary in this matter, none at all. But indeed, we seem to differ in what's best in this. I think hilary will try to find a long(er) term solution then Trump.
All in all, i'd still prefer Bernie, but that's like hoping for devine intervention.
The existing security structures have to be revamped. Trump will come at it with something untenable and then work towards a compromise. That is the art of dealmaking and he knows it better than most.
Clinton won't even try, and the system will get more fragile than it is now. Then she will react, and undershoot or overshoot, because there was no strategy at play.
At the present time in history, no matter what president is in charge, it will be a US first four years. That is the trend, apart from stopping ISIL. The US, at this time in its history, will have to, for a while at least, become more insular, while it sorts out its mess at home.
Trump's foreign policy. :D
That is the problem with Trump. He has created, through his rhetoric, a visceral reaction in the minds of many. While they may choose not to admit it, their reaction to him is emotional (either values or fear based). It's difficult to shake that once it takes hold.I'm not saying that necessarily applies to you, but I ask you to be conscious of it in case it does or has.
At the end of the day, the biggest problem in American politics today is special interests and conflict of interests. The Clintons have that falling out of their backsides on every issue. Has she said one thing to shake up the status quo. One thing that shows she gets it? One thing that isn't a pander to some group somewhere? No. Why?
At least Trump speaks his mind, and I know him to be rational (from the business side which I have followed). He is speaking without a filter and saying things that must be said. They aren't pretty to hear, and his manner is abrasive, but he is at least able to comment on things that must be addressed, whether it be border security, terrorism, ISIL, trade, America's place in the world, China, NATO etc. etc. His solutions are radical, but they are the starting point in a discussion, from which one moves to the middle ground. Anyone who is involved in negotiations for a living (and I am and do) knows that. Never show your cards or your hand.
Sometimes the messenger is not perfect, but the messenger is still needed.
As I've said, I have hoped he could tone it down and get to specifics. I have also said what, regrettably, will happen if he doesn't.
If you think what's going on now in the world is ok, and if you think American leadership has been on the ball with respect to what has been happening, then there's nothing I can say or do to change your mind. I don't think it's been effective at all. There has been a serious lack of strategic vision, whether it applies to dealing with Syria, ISIL, Russia, Ukraine, the wealth gap, etc. etc. The fundamental reason for that is 'special interests'. Period.
https://theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/20/donald-trump-campaign-manager-corey-lewandowski-out
It's probably the beginning of his effort to rebrand himself as something other than the racist bigot he's positioned himself so far as, but it's too little, too late. Everyone knows that Trump is the main person behind his campaign and messaging, so this will have little impact. Trump's finally starting to realize that being uncompassionate and boasting about being right in the wake of a national tragedy in addition to the usual bigoted and racist remarks he spews forth on a daily basis are not going to fly with the electorate in a general election.
At least he's kept his promise to get the money out of politics. It's commendable that he's "self-funding" his campaign. 8-|
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html
'Political incorrectness', like so many of our western right-wing populists prefer to call it, in the end creates division, violence, hate, destruction and xenophobia.
I know from experience in The Netherlands, that even during Freedom Party's (Geert Wilders) 3 years of (indirect) minority government support, the country basically stood still. 'Political incorrectness' is nice to shake up things.....to remind 'the people' that something's not okay in society. But that's it. The same political incorectness never resulted in good, nuanced governing of a big country and all its difficult, complicated problems.
Men like Donald Trump and Geert Wilders in the end indirectly create these 'lone gunmen' like Thomas Mair and Omar Mateen. Those two men would perhaps not have felt the trigger to gun down people for reasons of self-pityness and psychological instability if they lived in a country with more social cohesion, more political correctness and more tolerance, nuance, and empathy.
Here are actually some nice article that perfectly verbalize what I think:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/opinions/trump-political-correctness-zelizer/index.html
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article84512862.html
Now, for many people in here the above two articles might prove difficult to read. But one has to admit there an important lesson to be learned from this: Stop using the words 'political correctness' if you don't have a clue about what good it has done to society and how easily open a Pandora's box if we abandon those two words or use them to paint off people as weak and ineffective.
One last thing, we can have discussions about Hillary Clinton's way of winning the Democratic primaries, her email 'affairs' and the way she accepts money from Wall Street. But at least her basic ideology on social issues, social cohesion and a society in which everyone has to participate and not just 'the white people', is way way more sound and just as compared to Trump's verbal feces.
And there's another advantage. 'The Bern' is also 'forcing' Clinton a bit into becoming more progressive candidate on all of the above talking points. My vote therefore goes to Clinton. A vote for Trump eventually is a vote for.......well, you know it by now.
ONLY BERNIE.
http://www.newshub.co.nz/world/would-be-assassin-arrested-at-trump-rally-2016062110?ref=newshubFB#axzz4CBx9wFdE
Yes, I agree, @Beatles.
It always feels like you (and others who are still hoping he will turn out okay) are trying to excuse him, take the edge off of him, portray him as needing to do better but really is not so bad. Well he is that bad, and worse. Change is needed in our system of government, but to cast a vote for Trump is truly NOT putting our country first, in my opinion (which of course, we all have a right to express our opinions even if we totally disagree with each other). Trump would dearly love to take away many freedoms. The GOP is waking up ... and too slowly, but at least awakening ... to a living nightmare scenario for them that will not go away.
@bondjames you are clearly informed and I respect your voice on this issue, but this isn't a poker game or sales conference, it's a crucial race for the leadership of the nation and the police force of the international world. If you run for president and continually avoid any opportunities to detail your plans/policies in favor of beefing up your image through the mudslinging of other candidates' dirty laundry, you're a disgrace to the race and the nation. The people heading to the polls need to know specifics and plans, not shoddy remarks the candidates make about each others' personal lives or other assorted intimacies. This is what Trump does. When asked a serious question, he sidesteps, says "We have a serious/big problem," makes some kind of overshot remark that generalizes a group or vilifies a religion, then remarks about how he has the best people working on it. Rinse and repeat.
He is so ready to place the blame on everyone but America, when in reality we shoulder just as much blame as everyone else. Our domestic terrorism dwarfs anything coming at us internationally to a silly degree, as if tragedies like Orlando weren't enough of a wake-up call to that. To displace immigrants or the idea of immigration is also silly for a country whose foundation only came at the arrival of immigrants onto a landmass where they didn't belong. If we want to get serious here, this land is and has never been ours, ever since we took it from the natives and pushed them further and further west as we conquered what didn't belong to us. Our ancestors were a melting pot of ethnicities, races, languages, backgrounds and classes. We started so diverse on our arrival from Europe, and in our present day we find it impossible to connect with each other for any reason until a tragedy forces us to come together in a collective act of preservation. Why can't we treat each other as we have following the Orlando shooting at all times? It's a shame John Lennon's "Imagine" is nothing more than a fairy tale.
I'm sure Trump will use the incident in Orlando to push more gun laws that make it easier for Americans to carry guns so that, if another terrorist-like act unleashes, "would-be victims" can all be ready to stand up and defend themselves. I am here to tell you that proliferating the ownership of guns and how many people can carry guns is the last thing we should be doing to stop things like Orlando from occurring again. If a good body of people in that club had guns on them as some in the media have suggested (because the LGBT community is clearly known for their gun-toting offensive and combative nature), it would have been mass hysteria times 10. Gunfire would've been erupting from everywhere, and when everyone was evacuating the place in a stampede, numerous more casualties would've been racked up by those carrying guns. People trying to escape wouldn't know who was a danger and who wasn't.
It just doesn't work, just like it wouldn't work if those who carried guns went out searching for a school shooter when gunfire erupted on a college campus or public school. With other people besides the shooter actively running around with weapons drawn, nobody would know who was involved in the shooting plot and who wasn't, leaving the situation open to all kinds of bloodshed and the deaths of innocents. The power should always weight on the side of law enforcement, not citizens who feel the need to elect themselves temporary task force members. More guns has and never will equal less problems. And, predictably, any opportunities to increase regulations on guns this week have been dead in the water, as the deaths in Orlando continue to be insulted by partisan politics.
I guess we're just getting the world we deserve. I long for the days where I wasn't so easily amused by optimists. Days where I didn't crumble so easily in cynicism to what was going on, and instead carried a positive or assured thought above all the darkness, no matter how little it actually helped or worked out each and every time. Somewhere along the line things stopped making sense, if they ever truly did anyway, and the image of the world we all dream about was just that: an unreachable dream.
"The world only makes sense when you force it to."
It's just hard to see a silver lining in all of this, though it's inarguably crucial for us to try and stay strong now more than ever. I'm just sick of waking up to news about events like Orlando, following which nothing is done to solve the real issues as more innocents die in vain all in the name of bullshit agendas and partisan wars.
Every act of violence, every life ever lost, is all down to a misunderstanding of each other and our beliefs. If you don't pray to someone's god, bang, you're dead. If you are a man or woman who chooses to lay with a member of the same sex, bang, you're dead. There's some nights where I just freeze, cry and weep for a better world. My late grandmother always comes to my mind at moments like this, because she wanted a world where everyone accepted each other, no matter what choices we made, as long as we did what we did with good in our hearts, with no judgement, hatred or ill-will attached. Lennon's idea of humanity. That kind of world shouldn't be a fairy tale, and it shouldn't be so damn easy to refute, but here we are.
I'm quite aware of that @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7. I may negotiate as part of my role now, but I am reasonably knowledgeable about world affairs as part of what I do as well.
I am not happy (to put it mildly) with his campaign rhetoric and approach since winning the primary. As I've said previously, he is an imperfect messenger (again to put it mildly), since he is so obviously not a politician. That is refreshing to me, as are his questions about the existing status quo on a variety of matters, and why things are being done the way they are. In my opinion, he is asking questions that must be asked, and his approach is business minded in terms of solutions. Results oriented. As he's not a politician, it's rough around the edges & needs to be fleshed out, thought through better, and made more palatable. It's a starting point for discussions and he has to put meat on the bones quickly, rather than being a strategic brainstormer (which is what he's basically doing now). I don't think he'll get there in time, but let's see.
However, given the state of the US (and the changing state of the world) at the present time, I believe a shakeup (with new ideas on a variety of matters including foreign policy, trade, border security, terrorism, illegal wars) is crucial. When you want to push against an organized and entrenched system (funded by special interests) set in its way about doing things the way it's done for some time, you need to be aggressive, controversial and consistent. There is no other way to change it, as it is so polarized.
As I said months back on this thread, the social issues will be exaggerated by the media to defeat Trump, and to distract people from the economic message that has resonated with the primary voters. There is a concerted attempt to 'define' him now, and he has, so far, played right into that with his comments on the judge & other matters. That disappoints me, and I expected him to be sharper.
I would have preferred if Bernie had clinched it, but Trump is all there is as an alternative to Hillary at present. If he can't be brought into check and if he can't learn to articulate the points which he believes (which I can glean from reading through the b/s that the media spills on him, and by hearing what he says in interviews when he is not spouting exaggerated electoral rhetoric), then he will be soundly beaten, and those who are so afraid of him won't have to be so worried after all. So there is nothing to be concerned about.
Hopefully Manafort can bring some discipline to his campaign. At the moment he looks to be going the way of Ross Perot (an intriguing novelty).
This just in: Trump's businesses are billing Trump's campaign for the use of his private jet, the use of facilities at Mar-A-Lago, etc. If Trump's "getting the money out of politics" it's only so he can put the money into his own pockets. =))
Exactly. We all knew the "self funding" was a lie from the get go, when he had two "DONATE" buttons on his official web page. We've reached a point where you just have to assume that every single word out of his mouth is a lie. I guess we're not far off from him having his businesses bill his campaign for the "charitable" contributions he's made to the veterans, who he "loves".
1. Trump is not asking the right questions at all, neither is he trying to shake up the status quo. Trump is actually moving backwards, in a 17th century form of logic. He has an isolationist approach to foreign policy and wants to build a "wall."
2. How out of touch with reality is Trump? Just listen to him talk about that wall. He is clueless on how much it would cost and how long it would take.
3. So let's build walls and keep out Muslims. That IS part of foreign policy, NOT just a social issue to be exaggerated.
4. In regards to terroism and terror threats, any President has to toe a difficult line between remaining strong (militarily) and being strategic (socially and culturally). Obama has toed this line very well. We are at war with extremists, not Muslims. That distinction must be clear. Clinton will toe this line very well, too, I believe.
5. Bush's war has left a mess in the lap of every President for decades to come. It was the biggest political and military blunder in the history of the U.S. So how do we clean it up? By continuing to burn bridges with the Muslim world? Or trying to repair them?
Trump is NOT the answer in any way. The only choice in November is the safe one, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She will mostly surround herself with the same foreign policy team as Obama and continue his path, toeing the line as best we can.
I don't agree with you that Hillary is the answer, but it increasingly looks like that is the direction this will end up, and then we will see how this unfolds over the next 4 yrs, and revisit here.
I am reasonably versed in foreign policy, being an LSE graduate, but am not going to get into a debate with you on why the Clinton/Obama approach has failed in the Middle East in particular. That will also play out over the next four years, and we will revisit here.
Ay carumba!
1. He is toast. He is not winning this election, and, in fact, it is possible that the Republicans will find a way to nominate someone else.
2. Any approach to the Middle East, right now, is going to fail on many levels. The situation is far more nuanced and delicate than most Americans care to know.
3. Given that you are an "expert" in this area, I am astonished that you would consider Trump as an acceptable President in terms of foreign policy. Many "experts" in the field have denounced him, rather loudly.
The so called 'experts' are the ones who got the US into the mess it now faces there. All bought and paid for my friend.
Well, you do have a point there. LOL