US Politics: Is Obama Yossarian

[Fez]

Eh? The Republican of the Lincoln era were not the same politically as the Republicans of today, I believe?

Broadly not, of course. But there are a few similarities. Already back then, the Republicans were preaching about the importance of the small business owner (or "independent artisan") as the cornerstone of the economy; while the Democrats were the populist egalitarian party (although they also supported slavery, which is certainly an interesting cognitive dissonance).

[Fez]

In completely different news, there's a chance that John Hinckley Jr. might finally be charged with murder. James Bradley died at age 73 this week, and the ME has ruled it homicide saying he died as a result of injuries sustained 33 years ago when he was shot during the Reagan assassination attempt. There's no statute of limitations on murder in the US, and apparently the DA is now reviewing the case.

I'm not sure its worth it. Also, is it really murder still if the victim lives for 33 years after the crime?

[James Arryn]

No idea where to put this, so:

Anyone seen Nixon by Nixon? Nothing terribly surprising in terms of politics or paranoia, but I had no idea what a full fledged equal opportunity bigot he was. Jews are clever but inherently untrustworthy and devious. Blacks are loveable but live like dogs and won't evolve for another 500 years at best. Women are very nice (except for the frigid bitches) but just not as good as men. Mexican-Americans < Mexicans because at least Mexicans clean up a bit and have some morals. Homosexuals are understandable but responsible for the falls of Greece, Rome and (!) the Vatican. On and on and on, with particular emphasis on anti-semetism. Stuff just comes tripping off his tongue like he's discussing geometry.

I am always amazed when remotely intelligent people espouse bigotry...it's almost semi-mythical to me. I intellectually know it exists but never really emotionally believe it's real and invariably assume satire at first blush...so a reasonably recent democratic(ish) world leader who thinks like this blows my mind. Honestly, it was kind of fascinating, like if a real unicorn walked across your front lawn. Just...wow.

Anyways, was this a known quantity at all? Does anyone else find this as surprising as I do? Of course it's less significant than his casual criminality or overtly advocating war crimes or similar, but still, just as a truth, mYbe because I have always understood the rest, the borderline John Birch stuff was simply incredible.

[The Drunkard]

Homosexuals are understandable but responsible for the falls of Greece, Rome and (!) the Vatican.

What's the logic there?

[Shryke]

Hell's yeah:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/08/obama_executive_order_on_mandatory_arbitration_huge_news_for_workers_rights.html

New executive order by Obama:

The order, called Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces, does two things. It requires companies bidding for federal contracts worth more than $500,000 to make previous violations of labor law public, if they have any to report. That’s a shaming device that the administration hopes will push companies to settle back wage claims and nudge them toward better behavior in the future.

The second part of the order is what Bland is so excited about. This provision says that companies with federal contracts worth more than $1 million can no longer force their employees out of court, and into arbitration, to settle accusations of workplace discrimination. “Here’s why this is so important,” Bland said when I asked him to explain. “For the last 20 years, the Supreme Court has been encouraging employers to force their workers into a system of arbitration that has been badly rigged against the workers. And so this order will result in millions of employees having their rights restored to them.”

[James Arryn]

What's the logic there?

I honestly couldn't say. He laid it out as a tautology. He acknowledged that most Golden Age Greeks were gay but somehow...unexplained...it meant more in their decline. For the Romans he made some claim that homosexuality was always common but something to the effect of the last 7-8 Emperors all being gay lead to the fall. And with regards to the Vatican he stated that Popes were always having sex with nuns, but that things only got really bad when a lot of Popes preferred men.

It's really hard to find the reasoning, as I say, he just runs this stuff off talking with Dean or whoever. Presumably Kissinger wasn't present for the anti-Semitic comments, but no one seems to disagree with anything he says, and often there is specifically addressed concord. It's just...if it were some guy at a bar, ok. But a guy with a nuclear arsenal?

[Queen Ayras Lord Commander]

JA,

You missed one thing. He approved of abortion to prevent mixed race babies, and almost equates the act as rape:

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/31513639#31513639

Enjoy

P.S. Also, he was very fond of a lot of gay figures. His beliefs are asymmetrical.

[James Arryn]

JA,

You missed one thing. He approved of abortion to prevent mixed race babies, and almost equates the act as rape:

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/31513639#31513639

Enjoy

P.S. Also, he was very fond of a lot of gay figures. His beliefs are asymmetrical.

Haven't been able to get that to play. I dread my iOS updates as they always fuck up my Kindle.

[James Arryn]

Those Nixon comments made the rounds on the American left blogosphere a bit, and it seemed like the comments about gays were actually somewhat well-received at least in that it wasn't "they are abominations." A low bar, admittedly.

Lol, yes, low. His 'I like ____ but ____' preambles remind me of the SNL VP debate. Something along the lines of: John McCain...I love the man, I'd take a bullet for him...is dangerously incompetent and borderline insane. And a dear dear friend.'

[Queen Ayras Lord Commander]

Haven't been able to get that to play. I dread my iOS updates as they always fuck up my Kindle.

1973, day after Roe v. Wade:

"There are times when abortions are necessary. I know that, You know, suppose you have a black and a white....or rape"

That's fucked up. On a more inspiring note:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DcR5qpRAGE

[James Arryn]

1973, day after Roe v. Wade:

"There are times when abortions are necessary. I know that, You know, suppose you have a black and a white....or rape"

That's fucked up. On a more inspiring note:

Yeah, wow. Nixon...I try, I really try to not use the benefit of hindsight when trying to understand how people ever voted for this guy. He always appears so uncomfortable in his skin. But then I tell myself 'superficiality, you hate it now, so don't be a hypocrite.' And I think, I dunno, maybe China would have impressed me. Or Russia. Just in the broad strokes.

But then I watch/listen to him do ANYTHING and I wonder how he was elected mayor of anywhere. And then the racist stuff...just where do you hang your hat? On Kissinger's IQ?

As for JFK, not really a huge fan, but yeah, he had the gift of the gab. My own personal favourite as the perfect reductionist's President is Bobby. I'd have liked a shot at supporting that guy. Seemed to hit all the high notes. Even though I think he was able to be less compromised/corrupt than his brother/father because of nepotism, still it got him there in one piece.

[Queen Ayras Lord Commander]

Hey, to each their own. In my eyes, JFK saved the world in a way no one else has ever done, but to each their own.

As to your point about Nixon, my honors thesis in college was a statistical analysis of presidential mandates, and in 1972, almost 66% of the population supported McGorven's policy proposals, yet Nixon won in one of the biggest routes ever. Go figure.

[James Arryn]

Hey, to each their own. In my eyes, JFK saved the world in a way no one else has ever done, but to each their own.

As to your point about Nixon, my honors thesis in college was a statistical analysis of presidential mandates, and in 1972, almost 66% of the population supported McGorven's policy proposals, yet Nixon won in one of the biggest routes ever. Go figure.

If you're talking Cuba, my overall take on brinksmanship leans in another direction. Like, he saved the world from his country and one other one. For all outer views of ourself as peace-loving, no one (that we know of) considered the nuclear option as often as we have, let alone having actually gone there, twice. So this idea that there was an existential threat is real, but it was largely of our own construction.

That said, and sidestepping the causality recorded from Kruschev's view of Kennedy over Bay of a Pigs/meeting, I agree he handled it well in a crucial moment. Though again, IMO, Bobby did the heavy lifting.

His performance aside, I think JFK might be the most important President in modern times in a symbolic sense. He represented a lot of things that no one up for the job had ever represented before, and so I think in that respect he was great.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Yeah, wow. Nixon...I try, I really try to not use the benefit of hindsight when trying to understand how people ever voted for this guy. He always appears so uncomfortable in his skin. But then I tell myself 'superficiality, you hate it now, so don't be a hypocrite.' And I think, I dunno, maybe China would have impressed me. Or Russia. Just in the broad strokes.

Oh, Nixon had a certain electoral appeal. To blue collar social conservatives, he promised law and order. He didn't rock the boat economically, and in fact presided over America's last real efforts at Keynesian interventionism. He signed off on things like the Clean Air Act, and OSHA. He was incredibly gifted in foreign affairs, in a realpolitik sense. Nixon was basically a loathsome personality whose entire electoral modus operandi was to appeal to the worst in people, yet he happened to simultaneously be a highly competent President,

[drawkcabi]

My favorite part of the Eastwood movie on Hover, J Edgar, all through the movie each time a new president is elected or inherits an office, after being sworn in one of the first things they do is call a meeting with Hoover most likely to discuss his stepping down as FBI director, and each time Hoover has some dirt on them and ends up leaving a new president unsettled as he keeps his post.

Then it's Hoover's turn to meet Nixon, and he's thinking, same old thing again, and at this point I think he's old and tired enough part of him doesn't really want to stay any longer, but then the meeting and Nixon is happy to have him as head of the FBI and wants to talk about all the other ways they can get dirt on people and Hoover is left blanched and unsettled from the meeting.

[Horza]

As I recall, Eastwood's Hoover is horrified at Nixon's requests to go after journalists and their families because such was against his ethics. This is utter baloney.

Hoover was horrified because the plan would have the FBI work with the CIA and the Pentagon - two bitter foes he'd devoted his entire career to sidelining. Not only that, the plan would by virtue of its scale increase the risk of Bureau agents getting caught, and because Nixon had only verbally ordered the operations his signature would be on the orders if they did.

[drawkcabi]

As I recall, Eastwood's Hoover is horrified at Nixon's requests to go after journalists and their families because such was against his ethics. This is utter baloney.

Hoover was horrified because the plan would have the FBI work with the CIA and the Pentagon - two bitter foes he'd devoted his entire career to sidelining. Not only that, the plan would by virtue of its scale increase the risk of Bureau agents getting caught, and because Nixon had only verbally ordered the operations his signature would be on the orders if they did.

Yeah, I didn't remember the exact reasons for the uneasiness, it's been a while since I saw the movie. I just found it amusing that the film made a theme of Hoover shaking up one president after another until it's Nixon's turn and Hoover is the one who ends up unsettled.

And I never for once go into these movies thinking this is how it factually happened, there's always significant changes to the truth for dramatic purposes, which I don't like, but know will always happen.

[Ormond]

I think in your discussion of Richard Nixon that some of you don't fully realize just how different the world was in the 1960s and 1970s from what it's like today -- and how far back Nixon was in generational terms. The man would be 101 years old if he was alive today, after all.

And both politics and political reporting were very different when Nixon was in office than they have been since. Watergate itself was one of the major factors that made "investigative reporting" more common, and that led to the negative side of politicians becoming more visible. I certainly don't remember having any perception that Nixon was particularly racist or anti-Semitic back while he was in office. Political insiders may have known about a lot of that back then, but it just wasn't disseminated to the general public in the way it might be today. In terms of his public presentation he seemed a lot more rational and "moderate" than Goldwater to me when I was in my teens.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I certainly don't remember having any perception that Nixon was particularly racist or anti-Semitic back while he was in office.

There probably wasn't much of a perception among the general public (not least because any racism on his part would be tame in comparison with some of the Southern Democrats), but I think it was always recognised that Nixon fought dirty, all the way back to that Senate race in 1950. He was the only really significant figure from the Redbaiting McCarthy era to actually get anywhere long term.

[Fez]

I certainly don't remember having any perception that Nixon was particularly racist or anti-Semitic back while he was in office.

I wasn't alive then, so I have no perception of what the public thought. But Nixon led efforts to purge the state department of Jewish officials, which is not something his predecessors did.