Trump’s Potential Next Targets After Venezuela
The U.S.’s stunning intervention in Venezuela puts several other countries in the region and around the world also on edge.
Read in TIME: https://apple.news/ApL7D2ttRTw-Ke5779hCD7A
Shared from Apple News
Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie
Scottie's Playtime 
But I don’t think that any of us on any side should bite off more than we can chew. We have an actual situation; this story is simply US media obfuscating what is actually happening actually now, so that people can’t buckle down and do what we need to do to fix what’s actually broken.
We should do a few things; write our lawmakers, help our own neighbors IRL, and organize a general strike.
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Hi Ali. Yes I know you think that the people should shoulder the burden of rising up and changing the government. Sadly this is one of many other things we much rise up to fight against. But I ask you where are the damn democratic leadership? They should be leading these people uprisings you want? I heard Chuck (put me to sleep) Schumer’s TV news cycle speech. His entire complaint was tRump did not get proper congress approval of the attack. That was the entire forceful snarl of the guy who is said to be the leader of the Democratic Party! Why because he is afraid to upset the many Wall Street wealthy and the wealthy oil companies.
Sorry Ali I am not buying the people must do more now as our Democratic Party are hiding behind procedures. I support the Mamdani, Sanders, AOC, and the progress wing of the party that is demanding the democrats stop sucking off the wealthy teat and go back to working for the people. Hugs
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I have never said I believe the people should rise up and change government. Never.
The damn Dem leadership, as you call I’m not sure whom–legislative leadership? party leadership? it makes a difference in what each is able to do–are doing what they can. Party leadership is currently working with candidates already running, of whom I’ve posted, but nobody else has; legislative leadership is doing what they can with no power because media who are supposedly on our side keep telling people there is no difference between Dems and Republicans, thus suppressing the vote. I’m not sure who’s paying those media, but my guess is that ultimately the money trail all reaches to the same people. It was like that in the 90s and the aughts, and I don’t know why it would have changed.
I think people should never have dropped the “burden,” as you call it but actually it’s an honorable duty, to run our government. Somewhere, somehow, people got complacent, and allowed themselves to believe the rumor that one party “takes care of the money and doesn’t legislate our rights away,” (that would be Republicans, who are rumored to run a tight ship and keep the taxes low while allowing people much leeway with the 2d Amendment and the freedom to starve to death or die of curable illness) and that the other party is the party of “big government programs and taking away people’s freedoms” (that would be Dems, who are rumored to be the party of people who don’t want to work but want everything handed to them by the government, & causing freedoms to be lost by ‘granting rights’ to every US citizen instead of only white straight cis men.) Later, a rumor joined that rumor about the Dem party, that it was the party of working people and of marginalized people. To a certain degree, it is, or is moreso than the Republican party (but recall the Dems who were against equal rights left the party to be Republicans during Johnson’s admin.) People grow up learning about these parties from their parents or other adult caretakers, and from people with whom they interact. Many people then become interested and actually do a little work with the party in which they’re interested, then they learn, if they didn’t know, what the party is actually about. In addition, they learn what a party can and can’t do, and the difference between the party and elected people, as to their abilities to achieve goals. First, though: party platforms change after each general election, so when people pay attention, they’ll know for what each party is actually standing.
But the duty of running government has always been the people’s duty. Always.
Now, I remember all of this from my childhood in the early 60s through now. Everyone does get at least the bare bones of how US government works and what US citizens’s duties are, in elementary school and jr. high, along with a US government class of some sort in high school. Maybe more recently the quality has been poorer (I mean prior to these past 10 years when we know it’s all a joke in some areas) than it was when I was in school, but that information has been everywhere and everyone got it. Maybe they forgot it, maybe the Reagan 1980s economy made everyone feel too busy to bother with government until he was out of office (I was working 2 jobs and politics was my hobby,) and by then they’d forgotten. But everyone knows what we’re supposed to do, they just don’t bother. It’s a choice.
So now we are where we are in the US. While I’ve not given up bothering my legislatures to do we the people’s work, I also have seen, for years, that we really need a good general strike. And for people to pick up their honorable duty to run our fucking government again. Benjamin Franklin was absolutely correct about having a republic, if we can keep it. We let it go, it’s running on fumes, and either we do our civic duties, or the fumes will burn and the US will no longer be a democratic republic. This is not a thing that candidates for office, or elected people to do. Those people running and the people elected need to do what we tell them. Leaving them to their own devices is what brought us here.
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Hi Ali. You telling me how the PEOPLE need to support the party and to be involved, hence the people shouldering the burden of doing the legislator’s work. legislative leadership is doing what they can with no power because media who are supposedly on our side keep telling people there is no difference between Dems and Republicans. Nope the media is not doing that in anything I watch, it is the party leadership of the corporate Democratic Party. I watched stumbling Chuck Schumer the current head of the corporate democrats on TV stumbling monotone through a condemnation of tRump’s attack on Venezuela. His only complaint was that tRump had not come before congress to get approval. There was a lot more to complain about including the US has no legal basis to arrest anyone on foreign soil to start with. What is to stop Mexico from going into Texas and arresting gun runners? How about the war crime of attacking a sovereign nation, nope. All Schumer could manage was a low rambling speech with looking down at his notes was the power of congress. Very inspiring! He should let more dynamic younger speakers do the talking for him. After all when you see someone from the other party they hammer their point even as is the case most of the time they are wrong. But they make the points loud and clear.
Yes party leadership has put their thumb on the scales of primaries to keep corporate inline don’t rock the gravy train democrats in office. Yup. During primaries the party needs to stay out of the election process and let the people have their say. During generals is when they should help out. Mills in Maine is a case in point all because Platner has said he won’t support Schumer and she said she would. David Hogg’s special election ouster was all about the party picking the candidate not the people. The Dems work to keep the entrenched incumbents in office no matter what. Remember how Pelosi gave AOC the cold shoulder for daring to run against an incumbent who was caught on an open mic telling voters he was only talking to them because he was being primaried?
allowed themselves to believe the rumor. Well Ali why is that? Read over what I wrote about getting the message out. Long gone are the days of stirring speeches on the congress floors and going on media to forcefully refute the rumors and set the facts straight. Now we have shambling old people like Pelosi who can’t say a sentence without stopping halfway through for a breath. Hakeem Jeffries who can speak forcefully but talks in circles so when he is done he has supported not the public but the party donors. Again look at Mamdani in NY. Still waiting for the party endorsement from Schumer and Jeffries only endorsed the night before saying they still needed more talks. His goal is to not upset the big money donors. The guy was handpicked by Pelosi and she trained him well. Protect the money flow at all costs.
But the duty of running government has always been the people’s duty. Always. We strongly disagree about the responsibility of running the government. You and I know we don’t have a direct democracy but a representative republic. That is because we got taught civic in school, a subject not taught for generations. Remember the push by Bush Jr to teach the core group only, math, reading, writing. He called it the three Rs. Our job is to be informed enough to vote for who we think will run the government the way we want it run. That is our job at all levels. Even local levels if you think you can make the difference run telling people what you will do, but the people choice the person. Once the person is elected the people can try to influence the people by attending meetings of the board or group, but the job of running said body of government is the elected persons not the people. Otherwise you have chaos of conflicting orders given. At the state level in most states forget trying to influence them and the federal level we have already discussed.
While I’ve not given up bothering my legislatures to do we the people’s work. Good for you, and others who try. But you don’t rush in and try to cast the vote do you? They run the government and we influence them. Normally by voting. But as I said the Democratic Party works to keep incumbents in office to keep the gravy train flowing.
And for people to pick up their honorable duty to run our fucking government again. Sorry to belabor the point, but the people don’t run the government. You don’t get a vote on any bill in state or federal legislatures and you can’t sign anything into law or veto it. People vote and influence, we do not run the government. We are represented by the people that are to do the job of running the government!
Those people running and the people elected need to do what we tell them. Yup my point. But the system is broken. Far too many feel protecting their seat in what ever body is far more important than the public they represent. They see elected office as the golden ticket to personal wealth and power. Marge Greene entered congress with a disclosed wealth of $700,000. She left congress after two terms claiming a worth of 22 million. Not a bad haul. Pelosi worked hard to get the bill to ban congress from stock trading shot down. They make a mint buying and selling the very stocks they regulate. The system needs young new people who will put rules in place to make congress what it was when we were kids, a responsive deliberative body that responded to the people and the party helped the people, not themselves. Anyway. Hugs
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See, this is why I say I lose you in my words. they seem to mean different things to each of us. you consider performing our civic duties as being a burden that legislators are supposed to do, according to what you wrote above, and I consider that legislators are supposed to write laws based upon what we the people tell them we want.
we are not going to agree on these two issues, Scottie. we just aren’t. I can’t explain any differently than I ever have.
I do need to clarify, though, that never have I ever said that we the people should or need to rise up and change the government. those are words I would not use even inside my head, much less on a public internet forum. maybe some people would, and they have constitutional freedom of speech. but that phrase is easily misunderstood by many, and I would never say it.
also please pardon my writing; i’ve got workmen in for the se cond day, and things are chaotic here. as well, please don’t worry about our friendship from my side; we can disagree without breaking up.
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And that’s where a great deal of the trouble of you understanding my points comes; you pick and choose phrases and then go down roads that I was not on. Also, yes. We do elect legislators. Then, we the people are to call and write to let them know what we want them to do. It’s our duty. We aren’t supposed to just trust that they’ll do what we think they’ll do; they don’t even know what we think they’ll do if we don’t tell them. So there”s that.
As to the rest, well. As I said; when you chop up what I write then take it down another road, we end up with this huge misunderstanding. Meanwhile, what happened to your original post? I responded to it on topic. Now we’re out in the weeds over what words mean to you, as opposed to what they mean to me.
All I was saying was, US media waste a lot of people’s time with these articles that are simple gossip/prognostication of events that haven’t yet transpired, leaving people overwhelmed. If they’re going to write about something, they should write has has actually happened (the Ws and H.) Then, if they perceive there is popular approval or opposition to the thing that happened, instead of piling on more stuff that hasn’t happened, they can just shut up, or else inform people of how to address their concerns in light of what has happened.
But no, and here we are.
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And he really will not raid Germany? Lol (Arrgh! 😉 xx Michael
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Who on earth knows what he’ll do, until he does it? That’s the problem with trying to forecast. It doesn’t stop him, and it lets previous acts go back under the rug. U.S. media should be informing people what can be done, by us and our electeds, to nip this in the bud, and make sure no more happens that is illegal and extra- or un-constitutional. But, media are always on the side of the Rightwing. Always.
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That`s definitely the biggest problem. But i just read that the court pleadged Maduro and his wife to unguilty.
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Hi Michael. No the court recorded their not guilty pleads. However each one tried to make statements on how they had been illegally kidnaped but the court wouldn’t hear that as it was not the time according to the court to raise such issues. This situation is fluid and as far as I know US laws they were kidnapped and they’re being held is illegal. But remember I am not a lawyer and many say it is US law that US can go after anyone anywhere to prosecute any criminal they wish to. The original law was to go after sex travelers who went to other countries to have sex with kids, but … hey the criminals use any law they can to get what they want. Hugs
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Hi Ali. That is because the corporate media has been captured by those seeking profit. The US has become an oligarch run country. Think about it I just posted in the cartoon / meme / news round up how Sinclair broadcasting owns 40% of the rural broadcast networks and insists their stations air repeated pro trump pro right wing convertive talking points repeatedly each day. In 8 minute segments. They must or get fired. We are far past the people must rise up to the point the people need Democratic Party leadership to rally around whom excite the people to rise up. Hugs
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Hi Ali. U.S. media should be informing people what can be done, by us and our electeds, to nip this in the bud, and make sure no more happens that is illegal and extra- or un-constitutional. But, media are always on the side of the Rightwing. Always.
Yes because the corporate media is in it for profit and to get their mergers making more profit they give the dear leader in charge anything they want. So many lawsuits that the media companies could have easily won were settled with million dollar gifts to tRump out of the company coffers and they got their mergers. Remember when Stefonoplis said that tRump raped EG Corral by a judge’s ruling. tRump went into full sue mode … every lawyer said that was what the judge said was what he did. Yet one stockholder who owned the most stock forced the company to settle and give tRump the money he wanted … because she was going to make over 6 million personally if the merger went through. And here we are. Bari Weiss is in charge of CBS because it was bought by hard right wing David Ellison. She is there to tank any story negative on tRump or his admin, like she did the 60 minutes story on the Cecot story. That is why no one can trust the corporate broadcast media and need to turn only to independent media. Like MSW and the Daily Beans. Hugs
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Hi Michael. He is full of himself. He wants the western hemisphere. He will leave Europe to Putin’s kind graces. If you noticed in the cartoon memes round up in 2019 Putin offered to leave Venezuela if tRump abandoned Ukraine. And now? Hugs
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