I was going to post this in the 2020 threat but it was really long. Bolton is a snake, but he's also a bureaucrat and bureaucrats keep good notes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-asked-chinas-xi-to-help-him-win-reelection-according-to-bolton-book/2020/06/17/d4ea601c-ad7a-11ea-868b-93d63cd833b2_story.html?fbclid=IwAR0EjfHm65qaMGoGF4--fCtooIx58Pf1t2vsPuolkm0GQPIP_qWKCsda8qc&utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook
QuotePresident Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 U.S. election, telling Xi during a summit dinner last year that increased agricultural purchases by Beijing from American farmers would aid his electoral prospects, according to a damning new account of life inside the Trump administration by former national security adviser John Bolton.
During a one-on-one meeting at the June 2019 Group of 20 summit in Japan, Xi complained to Trump about China critics in the United States. But Bolton writes in a book scheduled to be released next week that "Trump immediately assumed Xi meant the Democrats. Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility among the Democrats.
"He then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China's economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win," Bolton writes. "He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. I would print Trump's exact words but the government's prepublication review process has decided otherwise."
The episode described by Bolton in his book, "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," bears striking similarities to the actions that resulted in Trump's impeachment after he sought to pressure the Ukrainian president to help dig up dirt on Democratic rival Joe Biden in exchange for military assistance. The China allegation also comes amid ongoing warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies about foreign election interference in November, as Russia did to favor Trump in 2016.
Bolton's 592-page memoir, obtained by The Washington Post, is the most substantive, critical dissection of the president from an administration insider so far, coming from a conservative who has worked in Republican administrations for decades and is a longtime contributor to Fox News. It portrays Trump as an "erratic" and "stunningly uninformed" commander in chief, and lays out a long series of jarring and troubling encounters between the president, his top advisers and foreign leaders.
The book is the subject of an escalating legal battle between the longtime conservative foreign policy hand and the Justice Department, which filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block its publication by alleging that it contains classified material. Bolton's attorney has said the book does not contain classified material and that it underwent an arduous review process.
Bolton describes the book as being based on both contemporaneous accounts and his own notes, and it includes numerous details of internal meetings and direct quotations attributed to Trump and others. Trump allies have already begun launching attacks on Bolton and his motives, including describing him as "Book Deal Bolton."
The request for electoral assistance from Xi is just one of many instances described by Bolton in which Trump seeks favors or approval from authoritarian leaders. Many of those same leaders were also happy to take advantage of the U.S. president and attempt to manipulate him, Bolton writes, often through simplistic appeals to his various obsessions.
In one May 2019 phone call, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, part of what Bolton terms a "brilliant display of Soviet style proganda" to shore up support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Putin's claims, Bolton writes, "largely persuaded Trump."
In May 2018, Bolton says, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan handed Trump a memo claiming innocence for a Turkish firm under investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York for violating Iranian sanctions.
"Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people," Bolton writes.
Bolton says he was so alarmed by Trump's determination to do favors for autocrats such as Erdogan and Xi that he scheduled a meeting with Attorney General William P. Barr in 2019 to discuss his behavior. Bolton writes that Barr agreed he also was worried about the appearances created by the president's behavior.
In his account, Bolton broadly confirms the outline of the impeachment case laid out by Democratic lawmakers and witnesses in House proceedings earlier this year, writing that Trump was fixated on a bogus claim that Ukraine tried to hurt him and was in thrall to unfounded conspiracy theories pushed by presidential lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others.
Trump was impeached in January by the Democratic-controlled House of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, before being acquitted by the GOP-controlled Senate the next month. Bolton resisted Democratic calls to testify without a subpoena.
Bolton is silent on the question of whether he believes that Trump's actions Ukraine were impeachable and is deeply critical of how House Democrats managed the process. But he writes that he found Trump's decision to hold up military assistance to pressure newly elected Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky "deeply disturbing," and that he tried to work internally to counter it, reporting concerns to Barr and the White House Counsel's Office.
"I thought the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally and unacceptable as presidential behavior," he writes.
In the memoir, Bolton describes the president's advisers as frequently flummoxed by Trump and said a range of officials — including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Bolton himself — all considered resigning in disgust or frustration. Even some of the president's most loyal advisers hold a grim view of him in private, he writes.
"What if we have a real crisis like 9/11 with the way he makes decisions?" Kelly is quoted as asking at one point as he considers resigning.
"He second-guessed people's motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government," Bolton writes, always looking to "personal instinct" and opportunities for "reality TV showmanship."
Given Bolton's expertise and his White House role from 2018 to 2019, the book is heavily focused on a range of foreign policy episodes and decisions, from Ukraine and Venezuela to North Korea and Iran.
Bolton recounts numerous private conversations Trump had with other leaders that revealed the limits of his knowledge. He recalls Trump asking Kelly if the nation of Finland is part of Russia. In a meeting with then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018, a British official referred to the UK as a "nuclear power," and Trump interjects: "Oh, are you a nuclear power?" Bolton adds that he could tell the question about Britain, which has long maintained a nuclear arsenal, "was not intended as a joke."
Bolton's commentary ranges from expressions of disgust with the president's actions to relief that his advisers were able to prevent catastrophe. During a NATO summit in the summer of 2018, Bolton recounts a moment when Trump had decided to inform U.S. allies that the United States was going to withdraw from NATO if allies didn't substantially increase defense spending by January.
"We will walk out, and not defend those who have not [paid]," read a message Trump dictated to Bolton.
Bolton tried to stop Trump from delivering the threat, and became even more alarmed when Trump told him, "Do you want to do something historic?"
During one trade meeting, Trump grew irate when advisers begun discussing Japan and the alliance, and began railing about Pearl Harbor, Bolton writes.
Bolton's book is also filled with examples of Trump's closest advisers sharply criticizing the president behind his back, including Pompeo.
After Trump completed a phone call with South Korea's president ahead of the 2018 Singapore summit with North Korea, Pompeo and Bolton shared their disdain for the president's handling of the conversation, he writes. Pompeo, having listened in on the call from the Middle East, told Bolton he was "having a cardiac arrest in Saudi Arabia." Bolton shared his similar disappointment with the call, describing it as a "near death experience."
Bolton attributes a litany of shocking statements to the president. Trump said invading Venezuela would be "cool" and that the South American nation was "really part of the United States." Bolton says Trump kept confusing the current and former presidents of Afghanistan, while asking Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to help him strike a deal with Iran. And Trump told Xi that Americans were clamoring for him to change the constitutional rules to serve more than two terms, according to the book.
He also describes a summer 2019 meeting in New Jersey where Trump says journalists should be jailed so they have to divulge their sources: "These people should be executed. They are scumbags," Trump said, according to Bolton's account.
Bolton describes in depth the feuding and backbiting among Trump's cadre of advisers, as well as referring dismissively to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner's efforts to get involved in domestic and foreign policy issues. Almost every adviser — including Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former defense secretary Jim Mattis, Former Secretary Mike Pompeo and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — comes under the scalpel. By contrast, Bolton seems to hold himself in high regard and admits few mistakes of his own.
For Trump, Bolton writes, one singular goal loomed above all: securing a second term.
"I am hard pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn't driven by reelection calculations," Bolton writes.
Bolton says Trump said he wanted out of Afghanistan during his second year instead of his third year so he could blame President Obama for the war. Screaming about the border wall in a meeting with top advisers in 2018, Trump described why illegal immigration had to go down and the wall had to go up, according to Bolton's book.
"I got elected on this issue and now I'm going to get unelected," Trump said, startling those around him.
For all his public bluster, Bolton describes Trump as frequently uncertain, fretful and wobbly during difficult policy choices.
For instance, driven by a desire to please Florida Republicans, Trump talked tough about his desire to oust Maduro throughout much of 2018. But Bolton portrays Trump as inconsistent and worry-worn when presented with the opportunity to support Guaidó, who declared himself the nation's president in January 2019. Though Trump approved of a proposal from Bolton to publicly declare the United States recognized Guaidó rather than Maduro, within 30 hours Trump was already worrying that Guaidó appeared weak — a "kid" compared to "tough" Maduro — and considering changing course. "You couldn't make this up," Bolton writes.
In describing his White House experience on Russia-related issues, Bolton presents a picture of a president who is impulsive, churlish and consistently opposed to U.S. policy designed to discourage Russian aggression and to sanction Putin's malign behavior.
Bolton spends little effort trying to explain Trump's sympathetic approach to Putin. But the book makes the case that there is a disturbing and undeniable pattern of presidential reluctance to embrace policies designed to inhibit Russian aggression. He describes in detail the events leading up to the widely panned Helsinki summit in July 2018, when Trump sided with Putin against U.S. intelligence agencies over Moscow's interference in the 2016 election.
"This was hardly the way to do relations with Russia, and Putin had to be laughing uproariously at what he had gotten away with in Helsinki," Bolton writes.
Soon after he arrived at the White House, Bolton said Kelly gave him a warning. "You can't imagine how desperate I am to get out of here," Kelly said, according to Bolton's book. "This is a bad place to work, as you will find out."
Throughout the book, he describes Trump and top advisers repeatedly slashing each other, lying to each other and outmaneuvering each other to gain advantage.
At one point, Bolton says he learned Kushner was going to be calling the finance minister of Turkey because he was also Erdogan's son-in-law.
"I briefed Pompeo and Mnuchin on this new 'son-in-law channel' and they both exploded. Pompeo was furious, Bolton writes, "because this was one more example of Kushner's doing international negotiations he shouldn't have been doing (along with the never quite ready Middle East peace plan.)"
For extensive periods of time, Trump kept telling different advisers they were in charge of border policy, according to Bolton's book. One day in 2018 in the Oval Office, Kelly purportedly learned that Kushner was calling Mexican authorities when he barged in the Oval Office and said so.
"Why is Jared calling Mexicans?" Kelly asked loudly, according to the book. "Because I asked him to. How else are we going to stop the caravans?" Trump responded.
In November 2018, Trump came under fire for writing an unfettered defense of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, littered with exclamation points, over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamaal Khashoggi. But according to Bolton's book, the main goal of the missive was to take away attention from a story about Ivanka Trump using her personal email for government business.
"This will divert from Ivanka," Trump said, according to Bolton's book. "If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing."
He repeatedly describes Trump lashing out at military leaders, demanding to withdraw troops from the Middle East and all around the world — from Africa to Europe to the Middle East. "I want to get out of everything," Trump said during a meeting at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club, according to Bolton, as military leaders pressed him to take more nuanced positions.
At another point, arguing in 2018 with Mattis, Trump told him that Russia should take care of the Islamic State terrorist group.
"We're seven thousand miles away but we're still the target," Trump said, according to the account. " They'll come to our shores. That's what they all say. It's a horror show. At some point we've got to get out."
Describing the conflict in Afghanistan, Trump said: "This was done by a stupid person named George Bush."
Trump repeatedly told Mattis that he had been given a chance but had failed.
"I gave you what you asked for: Unlimited authority, no holds barred. You're losing. You're getting your ass kicked. You failed," Trump says.
Determined to make friends with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Trump decided he wanted to give him a range of American gifts — gifts that broke the U.S. sanctions that eventually had to be waived, per Bolton's book.
When Bolton recounts the Trump and Kim summit in Singapore, the first summit of U.S. and North Korean leaders in history, Bolton castigates Trump's diplomatic efforts, saying the president cared little for the details of the denuclearization effort and saw it merely as a "an exercise in publicity."
He describes it extensively — including what Kim and his advisers say, and what Trump and his advisers say in return, giving a fly-on-the-wall account of a historic event.
"Trump told ... me he was prepared to sign a substance-free communique, have his press conference to declare victory and then get out of town," Bolton wrote.
In the months following the summit, Bolton described Trump's inordinate interest in Pompeo delivering an autographed copy of Elton John's "Rocket Man" CD to Kim during Pompeo's follow on visit to North Korea. Trump originally used the term "Rocket Man" to criticize the North Korean leader but subsequently tried to convince Kim that it was a term of affection.
"Trump didn't seem to realize Pompeo hadn't actually seen Kim Jong Un [during the trip], asking if Pompeo had handed" the CD, wrote Bolton. "Pompeo had not. Getting this CD to Kim remained a high priority for several months."
Quote"What if we have a real crisis like 9/11 with the way he makes decisions?" Kelly is quoted as asking at one point as he considers resigning.
At least this question has been laid to rest.
Now we know why he snubbed Guaido.
I have to say, from what I've read so far, Trump is not going to come off well.
Quote from: DGuller on June 17, 2020, 05:52:58 PM
I have to say, from what I've read so far, Trump is not going to come off well.
I haven't read anything about it so far and I am also confident that Trump is not going to come off well.
I think Bolton might paint Trump in a slightly negative light in the book, from what I've read.
By claiming that Bolton is breaking the law by printing the book Trump is tacitly saying that the allegations are true.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 17, 2020, 02:33:55 PM
I was going to post this in the 2020 threat but it was really long. Bolton is a snake, but he's also a bureaucrat and bureaucrats keep good notes.
Real bureaucrats don't bad mouth their bosses after departure :contract:
Ones in free countries do.
Quote from: Eddie Teach on June 17, 2020, 08:35:09 PM
Ones in free countries do.
That's bad work ethics anywhere in the world. Besides, who is going to hire someone who breaks confidence?
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:36:31 PM
Quote from: Eddie Teach on June 17, 2020, 08:35:09 PM
Ones in free countries do.
That's bad work ethics anywhere in the world. Besides, who is going to hire someone who breaks confidence?
The person who the bureaucrat just broke confidence to.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 17, 2020, 08:45:35 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:36:31 PM
Quote from: Eddie Teach on June 17, 2020, 08:35:09 PM
Ones in free countries do.
That's bad work ethics anywhere in the world. Besides, who is going to hire someone who breaks confidence?
The person who the bureaucrat just broke confidence to.
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Mono, what is life like where you literally don't ever have to think of a moral quandary or higher ideal beyond "my boss is always right"?
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:47:28 PM
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Trump has betrayed about every person who's worked for him. Does it work both ways?
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:06:02 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 17, 2020, 02:33:55 PM
I was going to post this in the 2020 threat but it was really long. Bolton is a snake, but he's also a bureaucrat and bureaucrats keep good notes.
Real bureaucrats don't bad mouth their bosses after departure :contract:
He is not a nonpartisan civil servant but a political operative, that's a different sort of bureaucrat. He would be a high ranking party official in the CCP.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2020, 08:52:43 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:47:28 PM
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Trump has betrayed about every person who's worked for him. Does it work both ways?
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2020, 08:52:43 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:47:28 PM
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Trump has betrayed about every person who's worked for him. Does it work both ways?
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Again Bolton is not a civil servant like us.
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2020, 09:04:41 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2020, 08:52:43 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:47:28 PM
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Trump has betrayed about every person who's worked for him. Does it work both ways?
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Again Bolton is not a civil servant like us.
I would imagine that ethical considerations still apply.
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Why doesn't the same logic that to bosses?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2020, 09:08:14 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Why doesn't the same logic that to bosses?
I obey my boss and my boss obeys his boss. Just because my boss breaks the rules doesn't mean I can break the rules. Just because someone murders another person doesn't mean I can murder someone, right? Just because Trump does his thing doesn't mean someone can betray him.
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:07:12 PM
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2020, 09:04:41 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:03:25 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on June 17, 2020, 08:52:43 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 08:47:28 PM
Since you betrayed him, how do I know if you won't betray me?
Trump has betrayed about every person who's worked for him. Does it work both ways?
It doesn't. Bureaucrats don't betray our bosses. That's the end. What the politicians do is their thing.
Again Bolton is not a civil servant like us.
I would imagine that ethical considerations still apply.
You would imagine wrong.
I would imagine that politicians should behave in an even more ethical manner than civil servants.
What planet are you from?
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:33:52 PM
I would imagine that politicians should behave in an even more ethical manner than civil servants.
I can see the need to be apolitical if you are a civil servant, but guys like Bolton do have an obligation to blow the whistle if they feel like a President is hurting the country or his party.
Why are we wasting our time on the troll?
Because he got elected President.
Regardless of whether or not the book is a true account of events, nothing stated in the article particularly shocked or surprised me at this point. :mellow:
Quote from: Syt on June 17, 2020, 11:19:33 PM
Regardless of whether or not the book is a true account of events, nothing stated in the article particularly shocked or surprised me at this point. :mellow:
I was legitimately surprised he asked Xi to help him win re-election. I thought he hated the Chinese.
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2020, 11:22:08 PM
Quote from: Syt on June 17, 2020, 11:19:33 PM
Regardless of whether or not the book is a true account of events, nothing stated in the article particularly shocked or surprised me at this point. :mellow:
I was legitimately surprised he asked Xi to help him win re-election. I thought he hated the Chinese.
Trump was quite fond of Xi at some point. He likes strong leaders.
Doesn't mean he doesn't try to exploit them for his means.
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2020, 10:33:54 PM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 17, 2020, 09:33:52 PM
I would imagine that politicians should behave in an even more ethical manner than civil servants.
I can see the need to be apolitical if you are a civil servant, but guys like Bolton do have an obligation to blow the whistle if they feel like a President is hurting the country or his party.
But he didn't, did he? He kept working for Trump long after Trump's crap was obvious. Bolton is scum.
I suppose that at some point Bolton concluded that Trump had lost the 天命 (mandate of heaven).
Is that still a thing in China I wonder :hmm:
Eh, Bolton is old school GOP crazy. Not like these new upstarts. :P
Quote from: DGuller on June 17, 2020, 05:52:58 PM
I have to say, from what I've read so far, Trump is not going to come off well.
But surely he never does?
I do wonder whether the sheer amount of facts out there about his behaviour helps to dilute stuff like this with those inclined to support trump seeing it as yet more of the same and dismissing it.
Quote from: Valmy on June 17, 2020, 11:22:08 PM
Quote from: Syt on June 17, 2020, 11:19:33 PM
Regardless of whether or not the book is a true account of events, nothing stated in the article particularly shocked or surprised me at this point. :mellow:
I was legitimately surprised he asked Xi to help him win re-election. I thought he hated the Chinese.
He wants to do a deal - and said Xi is China's greatest ruler in 300 years. Which probably just reflects Trump's well-known admiration for the Kangxi Emperor :P
Trump merely produced 3 sons. Sad.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on June 18, 2020, 12:44:38 AM
I suppose that at some point Bolton concluded that Trump had lost the 天命 (mandate of heaven).
Is that still a thing in China I wonder :hmm:
Not really.
So, who is going to be fired next because of the revelations in the book? Pompeo?
Not to be mistaken with the man date of heaven, which is which is a dreamy date with you favorite male crush.
There are anti-China factions in the administration - Navarro in particular on a trade/competition perspective and Pompeo more from a national security perspective. Others - like Mnuchin or Kudlow - not so much so. Trump himself cares only what is good for him in the moment and what "deal" or transaction is available.
Quote from: Monoriu on June 18, 2020, 04:53:20 AM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on June 18, 2020, 12:44:38 AM
I suppose that at some point Bolton concluded that Trump had lost the 天命 (mandate of heaven).
Is that still a thing in China I wonder :hmm:
Not really.
My world history textbook in high school said it was. In retrospect many things in that book were wrong and known to be wrong when it was published.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 09:38:58 AM
Quote from: Monoriu on June 18, 2020, 04:53:20 AM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on June 18, 2020, 12:44:38 AM
I suppose that at some point Bolton concluded that Trump had lost the 天命 (mandate of heaven).
Is that still a thing in China I wonder :hmm:
Not really.
My world history textbook in high school said it was. In retrospect many things in that book were wrong and known to be wrong when it was published.
Mandate of heaven is a bit of a dangerous concept. See, a Mandate of Heaven could be lost. Through natural disasters, peasant revolts, foreign invasions, etc etc. It implicitly encourages people to rebel if they consider there is a just cause. If you were an absolute ruler of a place, that's the last thing you want to promote.
Yeah, well the text book said that the communist leaders might lose the Mandate of Heaven in the eyes of the populace and start an uprising. This book was printed in the early 1990's but honestly it seems sort of absurd. Like Commonwealth countries overthrowing their elected governments to make way for the divine right of kings.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 09:55:30 AM
Yeah, well the text book said that the communist leaders might lose the Mandate of Heaven in the eyes of the populace and start an uprising. This book was printed in the early 1990's but honestly it seems sort of absurd. Like Commonwealth countries overthrowing their elected governments to make way for the divine right of kings.
Does it? I mean I thought the term implied some kind of social agreement where the leaders had to provide good results for the people and in exchange they got to be the rulers. If they fuck up and bad shit starts happening then the people were required to replace them with people who could get good results.
Is that really that absurd of a concept? Granted there is some superstition in there that all bad things are the leaders fault but we kind of do the same thing in the United States where Presidents can get taken out, or are given credit, by factors often beyond their control.
The Divine Right of Kings is almost the opposite, where if bad things happen it is God's Will and it was probably your fault for God punishing you with a bad King. Better go pray and do better and maybe the next King will be good.
Fox has an alternate take.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eayr4UxWkAAl1_E?format=jpg&name=small)
Trump certainly errs a whole fucking lot.
Quote from: Valmy on June 18, 2020, 10:29:37 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 09:55:30 AM
Yeah, well the text book said that the communist leaders might lose the Mandate of Heaven in the eyes of the populace and start an uprising. This book was printed in the early 1990's but honestly it seems sort of absurd. Like Commonwealth countries overthrowing their elected governments to make way for the divine right of kings.
Does it? I mean I thought the term implied some kind of social agreement where the leaders had to provide good results for the people and in exchange they got to be the rulers. If they fuck up and bad shit starts happening then the people were required to replace them with people who could get good results.
Is that really that absurd of a concept? Granted there is some superstition in there that all bad things are the leaders fault but we kind of do the same thing in the United States where Presidents can get taken out, or are given credit, by factors often beyond their control.
The Divine Right of Kings is almost the opposite, where if bad things happen it is God's Will and it was probably your fault for God punishing you with a bad King. Better go pray and do better and maybe the next King will be good.
I don't think the mandate of heaven was a social agreement and I don't think that people of China believe they can stop a drought by killing president Xi.
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 03:09:52 PM
I don't think the mandate of heaven was a social agreement and I don't think that people of China believe they can stop a drought by killing president Xi.
Well I couldn't disagree more. I think it absolutely was a social agreement. And I do think the CCP knows they have to produce good results or the people might turn on them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/18/heres-what-truly-shocking-revelation-would-sound-like-john-bolton/
:lol:
Alexandra Petri is wonderful.
OK it's funny but
we shouldn't be making light of the pattern of importuning foreign leaders to help out his election campaign. That is isn't surprising doesn't make it into puppy level destructiveness. It's more like your puppy keeps using your absence to try to convey your house to another potential owner. The first gets the puppy an aw shucks response; the second, you get a new puppy, fast.
Quote from: Habbaku on June 17, 2020, 08:49:25 PM
Mono, what is life like where you literally don't ever have to think of a moral quandary or higher ideal beyond "my boss is always right"?
Mono: Utopia
Quote from: Valmy on June 18, 2020, 10:29:37 AM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 09:55:30 AM
Yeah, well the text book said that the communist leaders might lose the Mandate of Heaven in the eyes of the populace and start an uprising. This book was printed in the early 1990's but honestly it seems sort of absurd. Like Commonwealth countries overthrowing their elected governments to make way for the divine right of kings.
Does it? I mean I thought the term implied some kind of social agreement where the leaders had to provide good results for the people and in exchange they got to be the rulers. If they fuck up and bad shit starts happening then the people were required to replace them with people who could get good results.
Is that really that absurd of a concept? Granted there is some superstition in there that all bad things are the leaders fault but we kind of do the same thing in the United States where Presidents can get taken out, or are given credit, by factors often beyond their control.
The Divine Right of Kings is almost the opposite, where if bad things happen it is God's Will and it was probably your fault for God punishing you with a bad King. Better go pray and do better and maybe the next King will be good.
Mandate of Heaven is just a polite, convoluted and glorified way of the scholar officials to tell the emperor that, if you don't behave, you'll be deposed. If they tell that directly to the emperor, they'll be beheaded, tortured, burned alive, cut a thousand times etc. So they had to invent a nice way to say it :contract:
Quote from: crazy canuck on June 18, 2020, 07:13:27 PM
Quote from: Habbaku on June 17, 2020, 08:49:25 PM
Mono, what is life like where you literally don't ever have to think of a moral quandary or higher ideal beyond "my boss is always right"?
Mono: Utopia
Isn't that religion in a nutshell?
Quote from: Valmy on June 18, 2020, 03:11:53 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on June 18, 2020, 03:09:52 PM
I don't think the mandate of heaven was a social agreement and I don't think that people of China believe they can stop a drought by killing president Xi.
Well I couldn't disagree more. I think it absolutely was a social agreement. And I do think the CCP knows they have to produce good results or the people might turn on them.
I believe (and my Chinese students agree with me) that the concept of the Mandate of Heaven, while formally forsworn, still exerts a cultural influence on the Chinese people. The Mandate idea basically said that Heaven rewards virtue with prosperity. If the emperor is virtuous, then the country is prosperous, therefor, if the country is prosperous, then the ruler is virtuous. If the country is not prosperous, the ruler is not virtuous. Thus, Chinese rulers have pursued prosperity more than any other form of legitimacy, and the people have desired their government to promote prosperity more than, say, democracy or the rule of law.
Bolton may have to turn over the profits from his book. That would substantially increase my desire to buy it.
Quote from: DGuller on June 17, 2020, 11:02:52 PM
Why are we wasting our time on the troll?
It's only a troll if he doesn't really believe it. We've know him for 17 years now. He believes it.