Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Interestingly, part of the reason that, until now, Trump has been supported in Russia is due to translation. If you read the Russian language papers like I do, you’ll notice that the Russian translators don’t verbatim copy what Trump says. Instead, they’ll translate what he’s saying into short, professional, statesman-like statements, instead of what he really says. So instead of “I think nuclear weapons should be way down, and reduced, that’s part of it.”, the Russian audience gets a statement that translates back into English as “I think we’ll start with a substantial decrease in nuclear weapons stockpiles.” When Trump calls something “dumb” or “sad”, the Russian press will have him call it “damned”. “Bad hombres” becomes “armed bandits” and so on.
The Russian support for Trump becomes a lot easier to understand when you realize they’re literally not listening to the same person we are.
It’s really weird to see translation add nuance to a politician’s talk rather than take it away, but this makes so much sense.
But some interpreters, like Tsuruta, are concerned that translating the U.S. president too accurately might reflect badly on them. Alina Cincan, a Romanian interpreter and translator, tells Newsweek: “He’s not known for his eloquence nor his diplomacy. Either you translate exactly what he says which means it’ll be repetitive and sometimes gibberish—you’ll be saying ‘tremendous’, ‘very’ or ‘great’ a lot, or you try to make some sense out of it and ‘beautify’ it. If you choose the former, some may judge your interpreting abilities as poor, whereas if you choose the latter, you’ll make him sound better.”
“Most of the time, when he speaks he seems not to know quite where he’s going,” Viennot said. “It’s as if he had thematic clouds in his head that he would pick from with no need of a logical thread to link them.”
She is left with a dilemma: either translate Trump exactly as he speaks — and let French readers struggle with the content — or keep the content, but smooth out the style, “so that it is a little bit more intelligible, leading non-English speakers to believe that Trump is an ordinary politician who speaks properly.”
“Trump spent a decade telling everybody who would listen how easy it was. And he ought to know, right? He’s a billionaire. Billionaires got money. Right? That makes him smarter than the professionals. Sure it does. Just ask him.
Except that simplistic view was wrong – as evidenced by Trump’s own words, even if he doesn’t have the moral courage to admit it.
And being wrong on this scale has consequences.
Trump was stunned by how difficult it was to come up with a better health care plan than Obamacare.
“Nobody knew health care could be this complicated,” he lamented.
Nobody.
But the thing is, the professionals did know. The people with the most experience knew. And they said so, over and over and over again. It was only the ignorant and the foolish and the howling mob who didn’t know. Who didn’t want to know.”
That’s all it took - one bogus military operation, and *poof* all the fake progressives who were saying #NotMyPresident a few weeks ago, are suddenly showering Trump with praise.
How quickly they seem to have forgotten about Trump’s pending budget cuts to the social safety net, and his blatant racism and Islamophobia. If Trump really wanted to help the people of Syria, he would accept more Syrian refugees and stop pushing his discriminatory, unconstitutional Ban on Muslims.
It feels like corporate media is trying to sell us into another war in the Middle East.
Another war in the Middle East that Tr*mp and his Establishment pals – including those in the corporate media – will profit handsomely from, while America’s poor and vulnerable are fed to the ravenous war machine.
Trump discussed this with PUTIN and not the US CONGRESS…let that sink in
Turkey
For decades, the European Union dangled the possibility of membership before an eager suitor in Turkey.
In the intervening years Webrazzi has grown to become, ‘effectively’ the TechCrunch of Turkey, operating its own conferences, while others have sprung up.
Turkey’s opposition party has vowed to challenge the results.
tonight (4/6) the united states navy launched 59 tomahawk missiles from the mediterranean at a syrian air base. the strike was approved by trump, but was not approved by congress (we don’t know whether or not congress was notified prior to the strike or not).
the us launched this strike as a response to syrian president assad’s chemical warfare on his own people that killed approx 70. the strike was aimed at the air base we believe carried out the chemical warfare. so far, no casualties are reported. in 2013, a similar chemical attack happened. i believe approx 1400 died then and syria was forced to hand over its chemical weapons, though obviously they didn’t hand over all of them.
it is also important to note that in 2013 obama asked congress to approve a similar strike, but congress ignored him. this week, hillary condoned such a strike. the strike is being described by military experts as a “proportional response.”
what does this mean?
the strike is intended to show us power on the world stage and to further force assad from attacking his own people.
with concern about russia–assad’s closest ally–it is notable that the russian military was given advanced notice of the strike and it doesn’t appear that any russians were killed. the death of russians, obviously, would have other implications due to our precarious relationship with them atm.
the strike could potentially put american troops in danger of syrian military retaliation.
we don’t know if further strikes will ensue. i wouldn’t necessarily bet on it, but it’s possible.
is this constitutional?
not sure. the legal situation is unsure. usually, a president would go through congress for this, but if the administration can spin it to say that they were concerned abt the welfare of american troops, it could be constitutional. as i’ve said, though this sounds like a huge deal, it’s actually the most minor proportional response to assad, according to experts.
democrats are already voicing concern about trump and the administration’s flip on syria (earlier this week, trump said it was up to the syrian people if assad remains president and he has a history of tweeting that he wouldn’t interfere in syria while obama was president).
also:
it’s notable that michael flynn was replaced by mccaster as national security advisor and steve bannon no longer holds a position on the national security council.
it’s also extremely that important that while the trump admin says it won’t tolerate assad’s abuse of his people, he also doesn’t want to let refugees in.
here’s a washington post article on the strike: [x]
Jesus Christ was a brown Jew in the Middle East, conceived out of wedlock in an arguably interracial if not interspecies (deity and human) relationship, raised by his mother and stepfather in place of his absent father. He may not have had a Y chromosome. He spent his early youth as a refugee in Egypt, where his family no doubt survived initially on handouts from the wealthy (You think they kept that gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the wise men? Hell no, they sold that stuff for food and lodging). He later returned with his parents to their occupied homeland and lived in poverty.
Trump and his administration are xenophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, warmongering, tax-dodging, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-welfare, anti-equal pay, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-immigration, support tax cuts for the rich, support Citizen’s United, want to keep refugees out of this country, want to limit our ability to speak against the government, plan to abolish the Affordable Care Act, and they wrap all of that up behind a banner of “Christian family values.” If you support them, you have no right to call yourself a follower of Christ.
it’s so rare, yet so fulfilling, to see the J-man on my dash
I haven’t had to do this since before the election but it’s looking necessary:
Trump’s budget is a PROPOSAL.
None of the cuts have been made. PBS still exists with the same funding as last week. Same for Meals on Wheels.
CONGRESS has to pass a budget. Trump only gets to make suggestions. And Congress hasn’t passed anything yet.
Since everyone still has plenty of time to call their representatives and tell them what they think about pulling the rug out from under most of America, maybe don’t use the past tense when you’re talking about funding cuts.
Pro tip: call your local Meals on Wheels and ask them how many meals they serve in your area. Use that info when you’re making your calls.
For decades, the European Union dangled the possibility of membership before an eager suitor in Turkey.
