Thursday, June 14, 2018

Donald Trump Is the Most Honest U.S. President, Because He Says What He Thinks, Mostly

Witness his tweets. Is there any doubt they are true expressions of what he actually thinks at the the moment he writes them?

Yes, Trump does lie a lot. So do ALL U.S. presidents! "The" media counts every falsehood from Trump as a lie, but that is not accurate. He actually believes a lot of the false things he says. So those aren't lies. You want to see presidents who lied a lot, look at Johnson, Nixon, Obama, the Bushes. And their lies were even more evil than Trump's. Trump's lies are blatant and ludicrous. Those of the aforementioned were calculated as part of plots to commit evil. Trump tells stupid lies, then sometimes denies he told them, or brags about how he lied! [1]

Now, when I say Trump is the most honest president, some points must be made. I do NOT mean he never lies. And I don't mean he is completely honest. There is no such thing as complete honesty anyway. For one thing, most of our own minds are unconscious. We aren't even honest with ourselves! What I mean is, much of the guff he spews is what he's actually thinking while he's spewing it. Other than not cursing, my bet is there's little self-censorship going on when he tweets. (Note the chronic moaning of his would-be handlers, which "the" media feeds us, about how they can't control his tweeting.)

For those who recoiled in disgust at the title of this essay, understand this: Honesty isn't a virtue, per se. That's a very important point to keep in mind. Adolf Hitler was honest about what he thought about Jews. Saying that is emphatically NOT to give Hitler a compliment! It is merely a statement of fact. Ditto calling Trump (relatively) honest.

His tweets are not those of a master manipulator. A cheap bully whose instincts are purely tactical, is what they show us. His fulminations obviously represent his feelings of the moment. It's hard to see much calculation in them, contrary to the conspiracy-mongering of his many media foes as they "analyze" the tweets for hidden meanings and subtle strategies that aren't there. (In fact, the Blatherariat is constantly overthinking Trump's impulsive and improvisational acts. They're doing it right now, trying to divine a "strategy" in his dealings with North Korea. There IS no strategy. He just grabs opponents by the psyche an yanks them around, like someone grabbing your sleeves and tugging to move you in a simple direction.)

Whether what he says is true or false, there is no question that Trump is FAR more honest than most if not all of his predecessors. In fact, Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon,  Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, and down the line, were manipulative liars, and clearly flat-out con artists in the cases of Obama and Clinton. Trump too is a con man and a liar, but SO obvious about it that he's like a burlesque act of a con man. The fact that he gets over with many people is a testament to the credulity and stupidity of those people. He shouldn't be able to fool anybody.

Trump often ends up exposing himself by blurting out his true thoughts and motives. For example, when he told a TV interviewer that he fired Comey as FBI secret police chief because of the "Russian collusion" investigation.

Even when Trump says true things, the media nomenklatura and the Democratic Party's political elite claim they're false. And what clearly discombobulates them is when he violates the taboo against contradicting U.S. imperialist ideology. Like when he said in response to an interviewer who wanted him to denounce a foreign despot that the U.S. has done some bad things. (You're never supposed to admit that, even though it is glaringly obvious.) Or just now, in the wake of his meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, that U.S. war games with South Korea are "very provocative." This set off the Blaterariat and the Dems. And as if a memo was sent to every talking head, they all also objected to the term "war games," insisting they are merely "military exercises." In fact, they include practice nuclear attacks on North Korea, "decapitation" strikes aimed to exterminating the North Korean rulership, and invading the North. Obama conducted such "exercises," and Trump has allowed them too. He actually said it was a waste to send bombers all the way from Guam for these practice runs at annihilating North Korea.

Now, let us use another Nazi analogy to clearly illustrate an existential truth about the morality of lying. Say I was living in Nazi-occupied Europe, and I had hidden some Jews on my property. The Gestapo (or their indigenous police collaborators) knocks on the door and asks if I know the whereabouts of any Jews. Of course I LIE. Here, lying is a GOOD thing. In fact, in this instance, lying is a moral imperative! (Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any positive lies by Trump.)

"Honesty is the Best Policy" is a simplistic bromide fed to children by adults to make them easier to control. (And fed by adults to other adults to gain advantage over the target person.) To dictate to another person, "honesty is the best policy," is to attempt to exercise power and control over that person, pure and simple. Knowing what they really think, and what they have done, while one does not reciprocate, is an exercise in interpersonal domination.

Politicians and secret police types are well aware of this, which is why they themselves always strive NOT to be honest. They want to thwart others having a potential advantage over themselves.

So, I will conclude by saying that unlike U.S. media natterers, I like to go past the superficial events of the moment, the existential ephemera of passing events, and delve into the underlying structures of reality. The daily soap opera drama "the" media and political hacks focus on is like the sea spray from breaking waves, a constant yet ephemeral phenomenon, the obsessive and breathless daily scrutiny of which tells us nothing about the tides, the deep currents, and all the other underlying structural aspects of the oceans themselves.

1]  It must be noted that some of Trump's lies and falsehoods are extremely malign and cause tremendous harm to people- such as his demagogic attacks on immigrants. Hispanic immigrants, that is.

And of course he lied about his intentions regarding taxes, and then shamelessly lied about the actual tax law he and his GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) fellow travelers enacted.



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