That's something many have forgotten about .. probably never happen, yet, wow, it could one day if more of those electors took their role as seriously as Christopher Suprun does.
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Christopher Suprun: It’s time for Texans to wake and engage the political process
Christopher Suprun
Are you awake?
I’m asking my middle son and oldest daughter as midnight approaches. It seems an odd question to ask your children on a Monday night in the middle of a snowstorm, but they are about to miss history if they don’t awake from their slumber.
Trump under Leninist influence. How many really understand that?
"Hamilton also reminded us that a president cannot be a demagogue. Mr. Trump urged violence against protesters at his rallies during the campaign. He speaks of retribution against his critics. He has surrounded himself with advisers such as Stephen K. Bannon, who claims to be a Leninist and lauds villains and their thirst for power, including Darth Vader. “Rogue One,” the latest “Star Wars” installment, arrives later this month. I am not taking my children to see it to celebrate evil, but to show them that light can overcome it. "
To link a few with a Leninist reference, the last referring to Bannon's self-proclaimed Leninist status.
Susan Sarandon: A Privileged Fool and Extended interview with Susan Sarandon .. excerpt from the latter .. SARANDON: Some people feel Donald Trump will bring the revolution immediately if he gets in then things will really, you know explode. HAYES: You`re saying the Leninist model of… SARANDON: Some people feel that. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=121533288
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David Horowitz's War on Rational Discourse [...] Since, on the home front, it would be illegal to actually liquidate the enemy, Horowitz does not want us to take Lenin’s apocalyptic injunction too literally. Instead, he believes you should drown your political opponents in a steady stream of bullshit, emanating every day from newspapers, TV and radio programs, as well as lavishly funded smear sites and blogs. He also thinks you should go on college lecture circuits where you can use incendiary rhetoric to turn civilized venues into the Jerry Springer show, and then descend into fits of indignant self-pity when someone responds with a pie to your face. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=124394683
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US role in Colombia peace: from fanning the war to ensuring peace [...] Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos requested American involvement in the peace talks because the U.S. government had been deeply involved in the country's war. Over the past 16 years, Washington has spent US$10 billion on Colombia – much of it to boost the police and army in their fight against the rebels and the illegal drug trade.
Anticipating a frosty reception from the FARC's Marxist-Leninist commanders, Aronson tried a bit of humor. The guerrillas had invited Miss Universe – at the time the crown was held by a Colombian – to observe the peace talks. She declined just as Aronson, white-haired and 69, showed up in Havana.
”I looked them in eye and said: 'I know you were hoping for Miss Universe, but you're going to have to settle for me instead,'“ Aronson recalled.
Besides providing huge sums of aid to the Colombian army, the U.S. government has extradited several FARC leaders and indicted many more on drug-trafficking charges.
Russia Today: why western cynics lap up Putin’s TV poison and Trump and Putin: A Love Story .. excerpt from the 2nd one ,, A liberal paper called Nezavisimaya Gazeta (The Independent Newspaper) published a leak of a new draft platform for the Communist Party. The draft rejected Marxist-Leninist ideology in favor of European-style social democracy, and it “unconditionally” condemned the “crimes” of the Stalin regime, which “broke and maimed the lives of millions of people, whole nations.” The draft had the endorsement of Mikhail Gorbachev, who was still the Party’s General Secretary, but of no more than a third of the Central Committee.
That same morning, Sovyetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia), the most prominent daily outlet for orthodox Communists and hardcore Russian nationalists, published a front-page call to arms called “Slovo k Narodu” (“A Word to the People”). The appeal, signed by leading figures in the military, the security apparatus, and the right-wing intelligentsia, accused Gorbachev and more radical reformers of leading the Soviet Union to ruin. Only if the “healthy forces” of state power united and acted swiftly could “humiliation” and “fratricidal war” be averted.
[One reason i'm posting this article in full this time is the clear abundance in echo of anti-Gorbachev Russian words and sentiments in the trashing of Obama and Clinton and of America in Trump-talk. It's almost like the Russians wrote much of his material, yet no way as the vocabulary here (see just below) far outshines anything out of Trump's mouth. The sentiments and tone though are no doubt an echo.]
“An enormous, unforeseen calamity has taken place,” it read. “The Motherland, our country, a great power, given to us by nature, with its glorious ancestors, is perishing, breaking apart, falling into darkness. And this collapse is taking place with our silent acquiescence and tolerance. Brothers, we are late in waking to this, late in observing the misery when our home is already aflame in every corner. We must extinguish this blaze not with water but with our tears and blood.” http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=125582447
Then we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.
Shocked, I asked him what he meant.
“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.
I emailed Bannon last week recalling our conversation, telling him that I planned to write about it and asking him if he wanted to comment on or correct my account of it. He responded:
“I don’t remember meeting you and don’t remember the conversation. And as u can tell from the past few days I am not doing media.”
VIDEO
Riding on the Metro to the party, I read an article that had just been posted on National Review Online and in TownHall.com .. http://tinyurl.com/zgy573l .. by Thomas Sowell, the conservative economist, in which he opposed the tactics used by the Tea Party in shutting down the government. He favored the intent of the Tea Party, but strongly opposed its tactics. "The only question," he wrote, "is about the tactics, the Tea Party's attempt to defund Obamacare." Their actions did not fit the standard set by Edmund Burke, he wrote, of a "rational endeavour." There was no chance of making a dent in ObamaCare or defunding it when Democrats controlled the Senate. and the public created a "backlash against that futile attempt," so that "there was virtually nothing to gain politically and much to lose."
I then asked Bannon whether or not he had read Sowell's piece, since Bannon was in favor of the very Tea Party tactic that Sowell had criticized.
“National Review and The Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.” His goal was to bring down the entire establishment including the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress. He went on to tell me that he was the East Coast coordinator of all the Tea Party groups. His plan was to get its candidates nominated on the Republican ticket, and then to back campaigns that they could win. Then, Bannon said, when elected they would be held accountable to fight for the agenda he and the Tea Party stood for.
If they didn’t, “we would force them out of office and oppose them when the next election for their seats came around.”
That, essentially, was the tactic employed when Eric Cantor was ousted by a far right candidate, virtually unknown college economics professor Dave Brat, in his Virginia district’s primary. It was also the path Donald Trump’s supporters took in Wisconsin, when hoping to duplicate their successful tactics in Virginia, they ran a candidate in the Wisconsin Republican primary against Speaker Paul Ryan in his own district. There are a few Republicans that Bannon does respect. One of them is Rep. Louis Gohmert, the fiery congressman from Texas, who was also at the party. Gohmert, who is part of the self-proclaimed anti-establishment wing of the Republican Party, was an ally of Cruz in the government shutdown.
Trump’s decision to take on Bannon indicates that he wants to wage his campaign along the lines laid down by him—that of destroying the Republican leadership and the Party as we know it. Trump’s behavior thus far has been compatible with Bannon’s belief in Leninist tactics. As the Bolshevik leader once said, “The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.”
Only one question remains. Knowing this, why do leaders like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and others, who regularly condemn Trump’s statements but yet still endorse him, stick with such a self-defeating approach? They will only end up helping Bannon and company cast them into oblivion and finish their hostile take-over of the GOP.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect when the party took place, and which Thomas Sowell article was discussed at it.
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