Gansters? US ?

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LarsMac
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Gansters? US ?

Post by LarsMac »

BBC : Mike Pompeo says, "We're not Gansters"

"US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has dismissed accusations by North Korea that he engaged in "gangster-like" behaviour during a visit there."

And yet, on another front:

U.S. Opposition to Breast-Feeding Resolution Stuns World Health Officials

From the article

"A resolution to encourage breast-feeding was expected to be approved quickly and easily by the hundreds of government delegates who gathered this spring in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly.

Based on decades of research, the resolution says that mother’s milk is healthiest for children and countries should strive to limit the inaccurate or misleading marketing of breast milk substitutes.

Then the United States delegation, embracing the interests of infant formula manufacturers, upended the deliberations.

American officials sought to water down the resolution by removing language that called on governments to “protect, promote and support breast-feeding” and another passage that called on policymakers to restrict the promotion of food products that many experts say can have deleterious effects on young children.

When that failed, they turned to threats, according to diplomats and government officials who took part in the discussions. Ecuador, which had planned to introduce the measure, was the first to find itself in the cross hairs.

The Americans were blunt: If Ecuador refused to drop the resolution, Washington would unleash punishing trade measures and withdraw crucial military aid. The Ecuadorean government quickly acquiesced."
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Bruv
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Post by Bruv »

"In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them."

Who are the good guys these days ?

Looks like who pays the piper calls the tune.
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Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

He's attacked his allies and started trade wars with every one at once. He could have got a lot of EU support for measures against Chinese intellectual theft but he attacked the EU. And Canada. On defence grounds...



I think it is pure impulse masquerading as a policy. He just does things as the mood takes him. If it works in some way for him he takes the credit if not he moves rapidly on with lawyers clearing up the mess. It might have been something he could get away with in business, but as President it is America that will pay the price. Trump himself is mainly using the Presidency to enrich himself and his family as far as I can make out.
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G#Gill
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Post by G#Gill »

Of course he is, Clodhopper, anybody could see from the start of this persons ascendancy to President, that he is only out for number one. He is so rich, money-wise, that he could only think of the Presidency of the USA as a way of filling in his desire for 'betterment' or something to keep him occupied. Something novel to get his teeth into, to stop him getting bored.

It is perhaps the only target left for Trump to aim for. Now he's got it, I don't think he knows what to do with it, except be a pain in the backside to the rest of the world and, in consequence, bring the world into major conflict. He behaves like a spoiled child who has everything, so he resorts to bullying for his entertainment and demonstration of power.

What a sad and dangerous man he is.
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Post by Clodhopper »

We agree on the basics but I think it is possible to put a bit more detail in now:

He has always craved acceptance from US old money. The big wealthy families with names like Bush, or Vanderbilt, or Roosevelt. But in himself he lacks the personal qualities that they respect which do include things like Christian standards of a decent sort, personal integrity and a sense of duty as well as business acumen. At the least they respect them in principle if not always in practice (humans being humans).



There's a story that when young he tried to buy popularity - his Dad really did make a LOT of money (dodgily, by some accounts) - and to some extent that works. At least it made him the centre of attention of people happy to help him spend, which is as close as he ever got to popularity. The Schools he went to had him mixing with the kids of old money families - his peers whose approval he sought. Craved, even. The money never ran out so he never learned different and the trend was set: Money is everything. Money is popularity, money is personal qualities, money is God.

Then there is the business skill, which is so important to his self image. I first heard of him 20+ years ago when he was described to me as a man who'd turned his father's billions into millions...in other words, NOT a good businessman. When he was down to his last few tens of millions he finally listened to an accountant who was able to sort out the amateurish mess he'd made. If you've got that sort of money you've actually got to be pretty stupid to lose it since by doing nothing you will make a tidy profit if it was sensibly arranged in the first place.



Anyway he learned his lesson and let others do the work. Long story short, those doing the work learned pretty quick that to get the decisions they wanted flattery worked and the image of the great dealmaker arose.

But somehow the old money families still sneered and as confidence returned with increasing wealth he took increasing control and the money started to take a down turn. This time he didn't listen and the money got more and more tied up in debts and loans and increasingly dodgy deals and eventually game shows and at no time had he ever got the respect he felt he deserved from the old money families. Eventually he ended up in Russia...



Who knows what really happened? Will we ever? Perhaps the Mueller probe will tell us some of it... Anyway, back he came and went for the Presidency and gosh hasn't THAT helped his deal making ability. The old money families still view him with complete contempt and he now hates them.



Ok there are lot of gaps and guesses in there but as far as I've been able to put together a picture of him, that's it. So far, anyway.
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LarsMac
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Post by LarsMac »

Bruv;1519867 wrote: "In the end, the Americans’ efforts were mostly unsuccessful. It was the Russians who ultimately stepped in to introduce the measure — and the Americans did not threaten them."

Who are the good guys these days ?

Looks like who pays the piper calls the tune.


I am thinking we are watching some grand melodrama put on by Putin, to convince the West that the Russians are really the good guys. I think it is working.
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Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

LarsMac;1519876 wrote: I am thinking we are watching some grand melodrama put on by Putin, to convince the West that the Russians are really the good guys. I think it is working.


I think Putin's record is pretty bad - one of the Novichok victims just died, for example - but on this occasion at least it seems the USA handed them the ball and invited them to score. So they did.
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Bruv
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Post by Bruv »

LarsMac;1519876 wrote: I am thinking we are watching some grand melodrama put on by Putin, to convince the West that the Russians are really the good guys. I think it is working.


Have you got the conspiracy bug too ?

To be fair it was American formula manufacturerers holding hands with politicians that wanted the scientifically proven best method of feeding babies played down........to aid profiteering on ignorance.
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Post by LarsMac »

Bruv;1519881 wrote: Have you got the conspiracy bug too ?

To be fair it was American formula manufacturerers holding hands with politicians that wanted the scientifically proven best method of feeding babies played down........to aid profiteering on ignorance.


Oh, no doubt in my mind about the conspiracy.

The corp money runs freely, and there is not a single politico who is not preparing a well-feathered nest.
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Post by Saint_ »

G#Gill;1519871 wrote: What a sad and dangerous man he is.


You said it, brother. I personally would like a time machine so that I could go back to 6th grade and beat the crap out of him.
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Post by magentaflame »

All i can say is, try breast feeding guys and see how quickly you reach for the bottle....in both respects.

Unless a government wants to pay for a breast pump for every mother they should shut thr hell up.....you know some of those little darlings are born with the suction of an industrial Dyson....and even teeth!!!!!
The 'radical' left just wants everyone to have food, shelter, healthcare, education and a living wage. Man that's radical!....ooooohhhh Scary!
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

Sometimes you can't win - isn't this the end result of a long campaign that resulted from the multinationals going in and selling baby milk substitute in poor communities, even claiming it was better than breast milk? In the economically precarious communities they were doing this it quite often happened that the family had a bit of a down turn, couldn't afford the milk - and Mum had stopped producing. Trouble.

Oh, and Bruv, I may or may not be right in my suspicions about Putin's links to all this. But if the Police, Electoral Commission and Intelligence Services in this country and the FBI in the US are investigating Putin's possible links, it isn't a conspiracy theory or at least not in the sense the phrase is commonly used. It's a very reasonable suspicion.

And NOTHING I have seen in his trip to NATO and the UK has allayed those suspicions. Especially the meeting he will have with Putin, alone, without even translators.
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