That letter is a disgrace. It's crawling. It sweats. -- Twitter Richard Nixon
Per usual, Twitter Nixon is absolutely correct. I've never seen anything so ineptly written being used as an official communique between national leaders, not in my lifetime, and I suspect perhaps not in the history of this dying, lumbering brontosaur of a nation.
If we accept the tenet that writing, at its essence, is the act of organizing one's thoughts, then the letter is the antithesis of that principle -- sloppy, jumbled, cluttered, gormless. The best student at the best schools, right? He should demand a refund from Wharton, either that or Wharton should insist that he never utter their name again.
At its core, the letter is a cluster of teen emoting, alternately butt-hurt and still hopeful that the object of affection will still talk to him when they get back to school after the holiday weekend. Again, it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that this thing was used in an official capacity, even more difficult to believe that they willingly publicized it. You'd think there would be at least one person in that accursed place that would have the common sense to bury it under a rock, or throw it in an outhouse.
One positive thing you can say is that it will serve as a fine example in some future International Relations seminar, of what not to do in an official diplomatic communication, and why the tedious form of boilerplate and jargon is used. If you really break down the language used, he veers pretty quickly from "we" to "I" in creating a heavily personalized point of view.
That's important, and that's part of the function of the official tedious boilerplate -- to depersonalize things, to more easily address more abstract, neutral concepts such as strategy, and common goals. The idea is to talk about the common interests of the two nations, not the personal beef between Little Rocket Man and Captain Bronzer. He finally gets closer to that goal toward the end, but even then clutters it up further with that call me, maybe stuff.
Seriously, just a fucking idiot, through and through. I have to hand it to him, he's been amazingly consistent. It takes real effort to be that incompetent at even basic skills for seventy-two years, and never come up for air long enough to get something right. (Unless, of course, you want to count burning contractors and investors. He's pretty consistent on that as well.)
Obviously, this outcome was a slam-dunk call to make, and pretty much everyone who understands this failed putz for what he is saw it coming. I said it several weeks ago -- the guy can't help it, everything he touches turns to shit. This was destined to be no different.
He fails at these things because they take actual work and effort, and he's lazy and stupid. He refuses to read or learn or put any effort into these things. It means nothing to him that for more than sixty years, a lot of very intelligent people -- Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives -- have worked together to carefully craft a coherent, consistent strategy to deal with what we ultimately have determined to be a pariah state. (Maybe the problem is that no one explained to the emperor what the word "pariah" means, and what it entails.)
I actually believe that there are two parallel strategies in play here. The surface strategy was more of an approach, in that Clownstick clearly was spending more time shopping for shelves for his peace prize, than doing the work needed to get it. So his "strategy" basically consisted of whatever made him seem either like the great peacemaker who deserves the elitist prize that the black guy got, or the tough guy he likes to pretend to be, balling his tiny, tiny hand into wittle tiny fists to sock you with.
He also labors under the delusion that because they don't foot the entire bill for the American military presence in Korea, the South Koreans must be ripping us off. This is another classic example of what a terrible negotiator he actually is, because he seriously doesn't feel like it's a "good deal" unless he's fucked the other guy over. A straight-up, both-sides-win, mutually-acceptable risks-rewards deal is incomprehensible to him. He seriously seems to believe that it's not a good deal until the other guy has handed over his pants and given permission to fuck his wife. So he is hell-bent to pull American troops out of Korea, which would suit the Chinese just fine.
The real strategy, employed by Bolton and Pompeo, is basically to alternately posture briefly as seeking some sort of rapprochement with North Korea, then sabotaging the deal, either with demands that they knew would never be acceptable to NK, or with belligerent talk that they knew would piss the Norks off, and goad them into backing out. In this case, they actually did both those things.
I think Bolton wants war, and didn't have too much trouble convincing Pompeo, and Clownstick doesn't really care either way, as long as he gets to feed his ego somehow. But like pretty much everything else they do, they managed to find a way to fuck it all up even worse than they ordinarily would have.
After inviting Moon Jae-In to the White House to meet, Clownstick didn't even bother informing the South Korean government that he was pulling out of the summit and sending this stupid letter. They found out about it from the news, same as we all did. That's how they do things. Fucking discount. These people are amateurs, every step of the way.
Meanwhile, China has been making aggressive moves in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, and now they are annoyed at being disinvited from joint military exercises in the region. Kim Jong Un has carefully cultivated his relationship with China, and they are now seeing his value as a strategic proxy. Meanwhile, the doddering narcissist clogging up the capital lurches from one half-witted negotiation tactic to another, not realizing that he didn't have much of a hand to begin with, but now he has none at all.
These guys just ate his fucking lunch. He can impose all the sanctions he wants in retaliation, and China will just make up for it by shipping supplies across the Yalu River. The Russians will probably help too. After all, what's numbnuts going to do about it? He's got personal commercial interests leveraged by both of those governments now, plus he needs China to not go through with its threats of a trade war, something that would be far more damaging to the Midwest states than to China.
This is a perfect, crystallized example of why this country is so far beyond fucked, if we don't find a way to rid ourselves not only of Fuckface Von Clownstick's idiotic reality-teevee administration, but of his retard fanbase. Strategy matters. Homework matters. Knowledge matters. Statecraft and protocol and language all matter a great deal.
You're not writing a fund-raising letter for your local 4-H chapter, asshole. You're not shaking down your neighbors for the next school bake sale. You're speaking on behalf of 320 million Americans, trying to calibrate very finely-tuned geopolitical strategies and tactics that may not be perfect, but have kept the region from erupting into a nuclear free-fire zone for more than six decades now.
The only thing worse than an insufferable ass who is sure he knows more than everyone else, is the one who doesn't know anything at all. And he's going to get innocent people killed fucking around.
Per usual, Twitter Nixon is absolutely correct. I've never seen anything so ineptly written being used as an official communique between national leaders, not in my lifetime, and I suspect perhaps not in the history of this dying, lumbering brontosaur of a nation.
If we accept the tenet that writing, at its essence, is the act of organizing one's thoughts, then the letter is the antithesis of that principle -- sloppy, jumbled, cluttered, gormless. The best student at the best schools, right? He should demand a refund from Wharton, either that or Wharton should insist that he never utter their name again.
At its core, the letter is a cluster of teen emoting, alternately butt-hurt and still hopeful that the object of affection will still talk to him when they get back to school after the holiday weekend. Again, it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that this thing was used in an official capacity, even more difficult to believe that they willingly publicized it. You'd think there would be at least one person in that accursed place that would have the common sense to bury it under a rock, or throw it in an outhouse.
One positive thing you can say is that it will serve as a fine example in some future International Relations seminar, of what not to do in an official diplomatic communication, and why the tedious form of boilerplate and jargon is used. If you really break down the language used, he veers pretty quickly from "we" to "I" in creating a heavily personalized point of view.
That's important, and that's part of the function of the official tedious boilerplate -- to depersonalize things, to more easily address more abstract, neutral concepts such as strategy, and common goals. The idea is to talk about the common interests of the two nations, not the personal beef between Little Rocket Man and Captain Bronzer. He finally gets closer to that goal toward the end, but even then clutters it up further with that call me, maybe stuff.
Seriously, just a fucking idiot, through and through. I have to hand it to him, he's been amazingly consistent. It takes real effort to be that incompetent at even basic skills for seventy-two years, and never come up for air long enough to get something right. (Unless, of course, you want to count burning contractors and investors. He's pretty consistent on that as well.)
Obviously, this outcome was a slam-dunk call to make, and pretty much everyone who understands this failed putz for what he is saw it coming. I said it several weeks ago -- the guy can't help it, everything he touches turns to shit. This was destined to be no different.
He fails at these things because they take actual work and effort, and he's lazy and stupid. He refuses to read or learn or put any effort into these things. It means nothing to him that for more than sixty years, a lot of very intelligent people -- Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives -- have worked together to carefully craft a coherent, consistent strategy to deal with what we ultimately have determined to be a pariah state. (Maybe the problem is that no one explained to the emperor what the word "pariah" means, and what it entails.)
I actually believe that there are two parallel strategies in play here. The surface strategy was more of an approach, in that Clownstick clearly was spending more time shopping for shelves for his peace prize, than doing the work needed to get it. So his "strategy" basically consisted of whatever made him seem either like the great peacemaker who deserves the elitist prize that the black guy got, or the tough guy he likes to pretend to be, balling his tiny, tiny hand into wittle tiny fists to sock you with.
He also labors under the delusion that because they don't foot the entire bill for the American military presence in Korea, the South Koreans must be ripping us off. This is another classic example of what a terrible negotiator he actually is, because he seriously doesn't feel like it's a "good deal" unless he's fucked the other guy over. A straight-up, both-sides-win, mutually-acceptable risks-rewards deal is incomprehensible to him. He seriously seems to believe that it's not a good deal until the other guy has handed over his pants and given permission to fuck his wife. So he is hell-bent to pull American troops out of Korea, which would suit the Chinese just fine.
The real strategy, employed by Bolton and Pompeo, is basically to alternately posture briefly as seeking some sort of rapprochement with North Korea, then sabotaging the deal, either with demands that they knew would never be acceptable to NK, or with belligerent talk that they knew would piss the Norks off, and goad them into backing out. In this case, they actually did both those things.
I think Bolton wants war, and didn't have too much trouble convincing Pompeo, and Clownstick doesn't really care either way, as long as he gets to feed his ego somehow. But like pretty much everything else they do, they managed to find a way to fuck it all up even worse than they ordinarily would have.
After inviting Moon Jae-In to the White House to meet, Clownstick didn't even bother informing the South Korean government that he was pulling out of the summit and sending this stupid letter. They found out about it from the news, same as we all did. That's how they do things. Fucking discount. These people are amateurs, every step of the way.
Meanwhile, China has been making aggressive moves in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, and now they are annoyed at being disinvited from joint military exercises in the region. Kim Jong Un has carefully cultivated his relationship with China, and they are now seeing his value as a strategic proxy. Meanwhile, the doddering narcissist clogging up the capital lurches from one half-witted negotiation tactic to another, not realizing that he didn't have much of a hand to begin with, but now he has none at all.
These guys just ate his fucking lunch. He can impose all the sanctions he wants in retaliation, and China will just make up for it by shipping supplies across the Yalu River. The Russians will probably help too. After all, what's numbnuts going to do about it? He's got personal commercial interests leveraged by both of those governments now, plus he needs China to not go through with its threats of a trade war, something that would be far more damaging to the Midwest states than to China.
This is a perfect, crystallized example of why this country is so far beyond fucked, if we don't find a way to rid ourselves not only of Fuckface Von Clownstick's idiotic reality-teevee administration, but of his retard fanbase. Strategy matters. Homework matters. Knowledge matters. Statecraft and protocol and language all matter a great deal.
You're not writing a fund-raising letter for your local 4-H chapter, asshole. You're not shaking down your neighbors for the next school bake sale. You're speaking on behalf of 320 million Americans, trying to calibrate very finely-tuned geopolitical strategies and tactics that may not be perfect, but have kept the region from erupting into a nuclear free-fire zone for more than six decades now.
The only thing worse than an insufferable ass who is sure he knows more than everyone else, is the one who doesn't know anything at all. And he's going to get innocent people killed fucking around.
1 comment:
Given OUR history, I might quibble with which nation should be defined as the "pariah state" (after all, we vaporized two cities for no reason other than to show off and because our generals had a Woodie about their new toy), but as usual, an awesome diagnosis of the sickness.
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