And so it begins...
 

Yesterday was 19-01-2017 AD. Today is 0-00-0000 PR (POST REALITY)

What worries me a lot more is the kind of sociological impact that can occur over time that scars a society for much longer. I look at Pakistan's history and people who came of age well after Zia ul Haq was dead, but they are who I call 'Generation Zia' -- a whole new crop for whom the discourse has been so significantly altered from what it was before he enforced his ideas of religion and state, that they don't even realize that their perspectives and attitudes would have been alien to the generation before them. It is actually frighteningly easy to undo decades of enlightenment, and frighteningly difficult to undo four years of the opposite.

Btw I am willing to bet money that he is going to do all in his power to get his daughter Ivanka elected as the next president. Bets anyone?

Re: And so it begins...
 

Going to be interesting when Trump moves the US embassy to Jerusalem.

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Are they all Imran Khan voters ? :eek:

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I feel sorry for those who benefited from Obamacare.

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I'm not worried about Trump. Why should we be? If he screws up anyone, it'll be the Americans. I don't see him wanting to get involved in overseas ventures as he heavily criticised both the Iraq war and Obama's interventions.

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you know you really arent that far off from the Bulls Eye right now mate ;)

Well I agree with only part of that statement. America has one of the largest Armies in the world and has been known to 'police' other regions before. What is to stop them now from doing so more aggressively now that they have an the poster child for the movie 'Idiocracy' leading them?

Re: And so it begins...
 

What is extraordinary is that people who are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act have voted to get rid of Obamacare not realising it's the same thing. Turkeys voting for Christmas... :rolleyes:

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I don't know the ins and outs, just the principles behind it, which I've always struggled to understand the genuine negatives of. Still, Obama shouldn't be ashamed of this;

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/news/specia...urance_976.png

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It is far from perfect, in part as so many senators and congressmen opposed it, but it's a start. I just find it extraordinary that so many Americans do not want their fellow citizens to have access to decent and affordable health care.

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Is it peculiar that Americans don't have a proper health care system? Or perhaps it's not? Americans are.... Americans ;)

My albeit brief understanding of the situation is that while Obama brought about some sort of greater access to health care, the cost of health care payments or premiums went up by a lot for many Americans in the same time period and that's been blamed on Obamacare. And those were the Trump voters.

As an American once explained to me, don't underestimate how much Americans despise their own poor. There's an ingrained sentiment that if you're poor, it's your fault and as such you deserve your circumstances.

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universal insurance for all will raise the costs for everyone... unless the regulator, procurer and insurer are the same person (i.e. like the NHS).

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I don't disagree but it's still the right thing to do. The increases have apparently not been massive and it's part of the costs and thus benefit of society.

The USA claims to be the greatest country in the world yet so many are in poverty, the possibility of healthcare for all is about to be removed, it has no federal maternity leave/pay and the more. Seems odd that so many cannot see the cognitive dissonance.

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As I say, I don't know anywhere near enough about it other than the basics, so can't really comment. But it's not universally hated, nor universally adored....so isn't it just like anything applied to a whole country?

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well, if you can't afford it - as many middle-class & poor can't, then they don't want it.

People are often willing to sacrifice health for money or other priorities... strangely but it is true. If people didn't they wouldn't eat cheap junk food in order to save money for make-up/cars etc.

Re: And so it begins...
 

You've made a point here that I think others are missing a bit which is the recalibration of what is acceptable and "normal" that appears to be taking place. Trump and his minions are institutionalising a whole suite of behaviours that would have been considered completely unacceptable before. Much as I am concerned about the evisceration of climate change mitigation, civil rights and public access to healthcare (I have friends and family in the US likely to be affected) that is already underway, I am scared sh*tless about the aggressive assault on facts and reality.

Trump himself tweeted about "record" crowds at his inauguration when all independent evidence including photos and reports of users on the DC metro indicate his event had much lower crowds than for either of Obama's inaugurations - and even lower than W's. Then his press secretary attacked the media yesterday for lying about inauguration crowds when in fact they were simply reporting factually. Again the unsupported line of "record crowds" was trotted out. The strategy seems to be to dismiss and discredit fact based reporting as the province of the lying, biased "mainstream media". This then means that facts are simply one more piece of noise contesting the airspace with propaganda and bullsh*t. Basically, the truth is whatever the Trump administration wants it to be.

And people are bleating about giving Trump "a chance" and "getting over" Hillary's loss. But that's not the point. This has to be challenged before it becomes the new norm but I fear greatly that respectable news organisations are letting themselves be bullied into going along with this agenda. Somewhere Goebbels and Potemkin are raising a toast in admiration of the work of Kevin Bannon....