Trump has just given a press conference stating:

"Zelensky slept and was unavailable for a meeting with him. He traveled many hours by train, and this is a dangerous trip, and we are talking about the Minister of Finance. He went there to sign a document, and came back empty-handed"

Yet social media and newspapers in Oz and around the world have just published photos of Scott Bressent ( the said Minister of Finance) with Zelensky and reports of the meeting.

I'm just completely perplexed why anyone thinks this guy is normal when he literally alters reality to garbled rubbish.

Maybe someone else can explain what it's all about.

Make it make sense.

Oh I can Hedda. This is the way Trump works (like Boris and other successful leaders in this media era - give them a good story which need not be true or accurate). Plus I do think he's losing it (aren't we all?). Like all stars, we no longer listen to the words of the wise. If it's worked for us, we simply continue. Exaggerating, inventing, inflating gets great headlines and the majority just accept it. As long as it's a good story, who cares?

The media always take the bait.

JK2006 wrote:
Oh I can Hedda. This is the way Trump works (like Boris and other successful leaders in this media era - give them a good story which need not be true or accurate). Plus I do think he's losing it (aren't we all?). Like all stars, we no longer listen to the words of the wise. If it's worked for us, we simply continue. Exaggerating, inventing, inflating gets great headlines and the majority just accept it. As long as it's a good story, who cares?

well perhaps but the press didn't pick up the bait this time. They did screen Trump's presser but I've now watched 2 international TV programs and our local Oz government TV news report on the said meeting.

Not only did they report but the vision is of said US Minister of Finance (a large man) actually hugging tiny Zelenskyy and then Zelenskyy stating they had a very good and productive meeting.

So no I need a much better explanation that it was giving the media a "good story" when it was just more Trump bullshit which also doesn't explain the utterly bizarre fact that millions of (sane?) people just accept Trump's incredible lies.

And not only do they accept his daily bullshit fabrications they seem to be proud about it and think it's perfectly normal.

I have never, ever witnessed this before in my 70 plus years.

As I said previously, Trump is like some weird political Chauncey Gardner who as the film plot shows, spouts total inanities to his industrialist employer who takes his words as profound wisdom until it finally dawns on him Chauncey is just spouting gibberish.

I must admit Hedda that at 80 I have no spare brain cells to consider such trivial information. I thought the American meeting Zelensky was called Kelloggs as in cereal. I can't be bothered to research - I don't care. But there should be an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine NOW just as there is (for the moment) in Gaza. With Trump, there might be. Whether the USA (and UK) should be entitled to refund by Ukraine for providing assistance, I have no idea and, to be honest, I don't care either way. But I do think people should stop killing each other. I'm fine with people blowing up empty buses. I don't care if dead bodies get mixed up. I just think people should not kill each other for no sensible reason.

hedda wrote:
[quote]JK2006 wrote:


So no I need a much better explanation that it was giving the media a "good story" when it was just more Trump bullshit which also doesn't explain the utterly bizarre fact that millions of (sane?) people just accept Trump's incredible lies.

And not only do they accept his daily bullshit fabrications they seem to be proud about it and think it's perfectly normal.

I have never, ever witnessed this before in my 70 plus years.



This is the real issue behind Trump which people largely miss.

This is why I don't join in the lengthy breakdowns about Trump et al. My position is the same as JK's - it all just needs to stop. All murderers equal bad. Simple.

The real issue with Trump is not about Trump. He is spectacularly uninteresting. The real issue is why everyone doesn't react like you to him Hedda?

Why the vast majority don't have a bad case of what GM and others (no disrespect intended) so easily dismiss as TDS; while never considering just WHY so many react viscerally to the man.

I believe TDS can be seen as the litmus test for humanity; in every sense.

Humanity is changing. Human psychology is changing. The change is towards a loss of objective morality, values, compassion, subtlety, decency, wisdom. And it is worse than this as you say Hedda: many now laud the obverse of these things.

And so we see a man like Trump in the White House. Which is utterly remarkable, but he could be anyone like Trump. He is just a type.

It should deeply alarm everyone.

I am not going to pretend to be able to explain it. But there is fascinating work in neuro-science about how we increasingly prioritise one side of the brain over the other, when the other prioritises the values and context-generation, so essential for a healthy society, mentioned above.

We need to look at our culture and use of technology and social priorities and the loss of a sense of the divine, which doesn't "lose" God - but replaces him with ourselves at the centre of everything.

That recoiling from a man like Donald Trump - that TDS - is not the natural position for the vast majority - is the real story. And should be the number one concern for mankind.

I must admit Hedda that at 80 I have no spare brain cells to consider such trivial information

It reminds me of a gentleman at work "I am too old to care now".

Maybe Biden should have had his second debate with Trump as promised.

hedda wrote:
So no I need a much better explanation that it was giving the media a "good story" when it was just more Trump bullshit which also doesn't explain the utterly bizarre fact that millions of (sane?) people just accept Trump's incredible lies.

And not only do they accept his daily bullshit fabrications they seem to be proud about it and think it's perfectly normal.

I have never, ever witnessed this before in my 70 plus years.

As I said previously, Trump is like some weird political Chauncey Gardner who as the film plot shows, spouts total inanities to his industrialist employer who takes his words as profound wisdom until it finally dawns on him Chauncey is just spouting gibberish.
It is very weird. I can't understand it either. His admirers seem to either stay silent about it, as if they don't care, or applaud him for it.

When he was going on about Ukraine/Zelensky the other day, about Zelensky being a "dictator", etc., he also referred to Ukraine's cities being destroyed, as if that too was Zelensky's fault. Not sure if I'm imagining this, but I seem to have a vague recollection that, away back at the start of the war, Russia was blaming Ukraine for attacking itself, e.g. for destroying that theatre in Mariupol. Anyone else remember that?