Amidst all the scare headlines re: Trump as the new Hitler, who appoints this possible raging cabinet member or that, here’s one good sign — if the ban has teeth. But how could it?
Trump administration will ban lobbyists, enact five-year lobbying ban after leaving government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwrrN0B5KYM
Another interesting development, and this is most likely not anything Trump “caused,” but his ascendancy set off a shock wave in this country of which the ramifications continue to thud in.
Ford CEO Folds? Trump Confirms Carmaker Won’t Move Production to Mexico
Despite all the fear-mongering, I found the following article instructive — about Flynn and Bannon appointments.
Great News on Trump Appointments
So. Have Flynn and Bannon agreed to the lobbying ban?
P.S. I have yet to see any possible redeeming news in today’s appointments of Jeff Sessions and Mike Pompeo.
Finally, the following post is worth absorbing in its entirety. Both for its epistemological reflections (the many-faceted implications of Trump as master of Twitter), and for Pepe Escobar’s assessment of what might be possible, given Trump’s overwhelming/overturning presence.
Welcome to the Brave, New (Trumpolitica/Trumponimic) World
Excerpt:
What’s certain is that the seesaw across the West between conservatives and social democracy is not a see saw anymore. When in power, everyone was just reproducing slight variations of neoliberalism.
Yet as we have now seen, liberalism has been dealt a serious body blow – even as the so-called progressive Left has utterly failed to «sell» to the masses a serious, history-based critique of neoliberalism.
Meanwhile, civil war – national and global – is now raw, everywhere; social Darwinism run amok. We have an Atlanticist Wall – from Brexit to the Rio Grande – in the process of being erected against the Global South. We have the Declining White Man against minorities that in many cases have become majorities. We have Western elites pitted against «Islam» – an absurdity, because the real enemy is Salafi-jihadism, a derivation of Wahhabism. And ultimately, we have The Ultimate Predator – Man – relentlessly decimating Nature.
In a Gramsci sense, the old order has completely collapsed, but the new order has not yet been born. It might be a new order based on the BRICS – mostly Russia, India and China. The progressive Left must find the conceptual road map to be part of it – and influence it.
Meanwhile, we will be living among the myriad debris originated by the Trumpolitics IED. America invented the politically correct. Trump bombed politically correct. America is proud of corporate media. Trump bombed corporate media. These are already two important victories.
Trump launched an IPO over the White House. Now he’s the CEO. If – and that’s a mighty if – he manages to run it like a sound business, that’s bound to be a good deal not only for the US but to the whole planet.
5 thoughts on “Trumplandia: Possible Good News”
While I keep an open mind and an open heart on the possibilities, it seems to me that we are expecting or asking a lot of a man, who is so dis-connected from the “real” world and from the day to day lives of most of the people, not to mention his dis-connect from Nature.
I do think that some investment infrastructure is necessary, but not the big phallic projects that Trump is famous for. Water lines that bring clean water to all the people would be a good start. Mass transportation capabilities throughout the country.. get us out of our cars. I wonder too if speed is a necessary component of rail. Seems that we are already moving too fast and missing too much. A rail system that gets us there slower gives us the opportunity to see the country through which we are passing and maybe engage with others.
I’m a tri-spherical thinker, meaning I see things in a broader relationship and in mental, physical and spiritual context– in other words connected. We do need good satisfying work, not necessarily just good jobs. It means skill not just factory assembly, building quality products that can be repaired, not merely recycled. Honoring manual labor, not pretending that some work is less valuable than other work. With three times more people on the planet, we can’t just go forward with the same old mind set and expect things to work out.
We need a process that is inclusive, not exclusive, but looking at who Trump is surrounding himself with, it looks to be just the same old mobsters under a different title.
It does seem so. However, he’s landed in the swamp, his background and history are swampy, and yet, and yet. He wants this job. He risked everything he’s ever done and been to land it. What I personally intend is that we consciously shift the polluted atmosphere that has landed us all in the swamp. And, in the process, elevate him, even utilize his outsized personality, to help us get there.
Somehow, I just refuse defeat. Period.
Trump’s position on global warming alone made it impossible for me to support him. How do you square that with your hopeful stance on his presidency?
the last link on this post goes the same site as the second to last link.
Thanks! I just fixed the link.