Sean Hayden wrote: ↑Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:10 pm
You're such a snowflake 42. Trump is compared to Saddam because they're both scumbags.
How am I a snowflake? I've not asked for any quarter from anyone. Fuck off.
Also - the article did not compare Trump to Saddam because they're both scumbags. The article was specifically about comparing their decorating and decor preferences, and compared them at that basis - asking if there was some personality quirk that caused them to both have staircases, chandeliers and other opulence.
The point of the article is not to compare two scumbags - it's to argue that their choice in mansion decor is common to their scumbaggery - scumbags have such decor. We just don't know who inspired whom.
Sean Hayden wrote: ↑Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:10 pm
His scumbaggery just makes his wealth that much harder to handle. Also, you shouldn't take this to be an attack on Trump only. What is with all these wealthy scumbags?
The article, of course, doesn't take issue with wealthy scumbags in general. It's Trump. Because he's so much like Saddam Hussein. Don't be obtuse about what the article is saying.
Sean Hayden wrote: ↑Mon Nov 12, 2018 7:10 pm
Another aspect is of course how we treated Saddam. Were you bitching at the media when they showed us how he lived, and suggested he was a monster to enjoy his wealth in the midst of such inequality? Were you saying so what, that's just how rich guys live?
I don't recall seeing any media suggest that wealth made him a scumbag. I do recall the point being made that killing hundreds of thousands of people, torturing his citizenry, gassing thousands, invading Kuwait, and thereby stealing the wealth of the entire nation was scumbaggery. Only leftists view wealth qua wealth as justifying some sort of negative inference.
The media did not portray him as a monster for being wealthy when others weren't - he was a monster for creating a force which allowed him to seize dictatorial control over the Iraq Parliament, and in so doing, he hauled off about a 1/2 of the legislators and had them summarily executed as traitors. He sat there with his feet up and a cigar in his mouth as he declared who the traitors were, and had them all shot. He then established his perpetual regime and ruled by fiat, and he enforced his will through torture and corporal punishment, including having the wives of suspects raped right in front of them - political prisons - summary executions - torture - murder - black bag operations where people disappeared into the night, never to be heard of again. It was through those efforts and military action that he committed the theft that caused him to be as wealth as he was.
And, I'm not saying "that's just how right guy's live." Did you even read the Vanity Fair article? It sure doesn't seem so. Please - tell me - what do you think was the theme or main point of the article?
The article states that for time immemorial rich people set up shrines to their own "self-importance." But, they couldn't help notice - outside of what all rich people do -- they couldn't help notice the "striking similarity" between Trump and Hussein's decor. And, they muse - "who influenced whom"? The problem is - there is no "striking similarity" -- there is no heightened similarity between Trump and Hussein's architectural preferences than between Hussein and Princess Diana's former house at Althorp = and many many other people. The show two staircases (and they're copmetely different) - Trump had a common double staircase in the front great room that if you google it, you'll find an endless supply of them - it's a common architectural design. Hussein's was a far more opulent double spiral staircase, bigger and grander and more gaudy. Trump's was a typical mansion staircase.
The article asks -" Is it a coincidence, or does their preference for strongman politics dictate their prejudices in decorating? Or, perhaps more prosaically, which came first: the gold-plated toilet or the gold-plated bidet?"
Does the preference in decor dictate the politics, or does the preference in politics dictate the decorating?
Hardly a stupider question could be asked. I mean, who would write such claptrap?
Oh, well, that's easy "Bruce Feirstein, American screen writer and humorist" --- oh, gee -- "The magazine [Vanity Fair] took delight in trashing Trump. "In modern media terms, Donald Trump was our clickbait," Spy contributing editor Bruce Feirstein recalled in August."
https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/media/ ... index.html
The magazine took delight in trashing Trump - used him as "clickbait." Says Bruce Feirstein, author of this idiocy, and if you click on his name on the Vanity Fair link, it takes you to a page of his stories - about half of which (without counting, just scanning) are bash-trump clickbait crap.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar