U.S. Politics. Next?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, James Arryn said:

To me, the re-election has always been tied to what people here are saying about admitting being wrong. The world was pretty carte-balance to the US for a bit after 9-11, and supported dubious actions, etc. Then the world began to see where that was going wrong, started being less unconditional in supporting US actions and finally drew a line at Iraq. Not even saying ‘no’, just saying ‘not enough evidence yet’ and the US got really righteous and shining city and told the world to fuck off, we got us, no Freedom Fries for you, and contrary to how people want to revise it, at the time this was a VERY popular stance in America. If it hadn’t been so popular, in fact, I doubt he’s re-elected, because there woukdn’t have been so many people still hoping to prove the world wrong. I mean, it would be a massive embarrassment for Canada or Belgium or w/e to tell the world to fuck off and start an illegal war only to be proven wrong, and Canada/Belgium doesn’t go around believing in Canadian/Belgian Exceptionalism.

So for many people Bush losing, Kerry pulling out of Iraq etc. would have been admitting a huge neon blinking We We Wrong and Everyone Else Was Right kind of signal. And not about triviality, but about war and freedom and torture and terror and the deaths of countless tanned folk. In some ways a return to the post-Watergate pre-Reagan period where self-doubt was actually on the American options list. And the people who comprised the ~ %85-90 who believed in made up WMDs, backed the war and later pretended they hadn’t* were, on Election Day, kind of like those guys at the track who just lost their kids’ rent money and are now desperate to reclaim their life/pride /money on one last bet. Otherwise it’s facing a hard cold reality, and the consequences of your having been really wrong. And as someone mentioned earlier, look how many reacted when Obama tried to do even a little bit of that...’he hates America’. 

 

*edit: psychologically, to me, the HUGE gap between polls of people supporting W/invasion at the time and those who remembered/admitted having done so even 5 years later is an incredibly significant indication of how many Americans deal with critical reality vis a vis American foreign policy. 

Well written bud. Never underestimate an American's inability to admit that they're wrong. It's why we're still fighting decades, and some times centuries, old battles while the rest of the Western world has largely resolved them and moved on. Just compare Germany and the Holocaust and America and slavery as an example. 

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

If you get a chance, watch it. It's pretty good, like most Kubrick films.

Watched that for the first time on New Year's this year. Seemed appropriate.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Thanks for that, I've never actually seen Strangelove

I think it's currently available on Netflix. I know I recently watched it for free somewhere, so it had to be there or on HBO.

28 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Probably want to add Jackson somewhere on the list, too.

We don't really know where Trump will end up, yet. On a day to day, living with it experience and feeling depressed, he ranks pretty high though. The endless tweets, the daily embarrassments for Americans, the various openly chaotic evil government figures, the nuke threats. It's exhausting and depressing,. somehow at the same time.

Paul Manafort’s Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Robert Mueller Is a Pure Publicity Stunt

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/manaforts-lawsuit-against-mueller-is-a-publicity-stunt.html

I feel like Jackson belongs in the bottom tier, but not necessarily in the worst of the worst category. Everyone's lists will vary though. 

[Morpheus]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I think it's currently available on Netflix. I know I recently watched it for free somewhere, so it had to be there or on HBO.

I feel like Jackson belongs in the bottom tier, but not necessarily in the worst of the worst category. Everyone's lists will vary though. 

Genocide puts him squarely in the worst of the worst category.

[Sivin]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

If this is all true why is Puerto Rico, whose people are citizens of the United States, still in a state of devastation, without power, without water, without food, without work, without recovery?

You seem not to understand that nuclear fallout travels.  It poisons water supplies and land too, all of which goes into the oceans, from where again it enters the atmosphere.  This stuff poisons for generations.  Your thinking about nuclear destruction is, frankly, silly.

If you think that a fraction of this nation's collective resources have been dedicated to repairing the damage on that island you're laughably naive. 

Regarding the second charge, I'm fairly well read on the effects of radiation exposure on most living creatures. But what exactly are you looking for? 

It'd be awful, stunningly awful. But if you think that -let's just say- 500 nuclear detonations are going to render the world uninhabitable you're quite simply mistaken. 

If you dropped a hundred nukes on China, and got EVERY major urban and military target thoroughly devastated you will probably make China pretty goddamn uninhabitable, including a lot of SE Asia and the Pacific for about as long as it takes for someone who isn't living in Chernobyl to give a damn about finding an effective way to subvert radioactive fallout in affected areas. Maybe a billion people die in that situation. A fucking tragedy, a holocaust on a scale never before seen. 

And the world will adapt. It'll recover pretty fucking quickly too in places not directly affected as powers around the world abandon the -frankly- ridiculous nuclear MAD policy and pour resources into more selective forms of warfare while cleaning up China. 

The world is not going to end in nuclear fire or a resulting winter that deposits particles that enjoy shredding biological matter, it's ridiculous to even entertain the idea in the current state of the world. 

We ALREADY have weapons far superior to 'H' bombs that render chunks of the world desolate for centuries (like a few decades, let's be real) and they don't rely on 70 year old antiquated technology. Donald thinks his 'button' is his superpower because he's too goddamn dumb to understand that North Korea won't exist 24 hours after a resumption of open hostilities because we'll set the fucking air on fire. 

 

[kuenjato]

Excerpts from "Fire and Fury" are now circulating. 

https://twitter.com/KatyTurNBC/status/948676945121828864/photo/1

Someone needs to get a Meet-n-Greet between Chump and I'm Tyrone.

 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Watched that for the first time on New Year's this year. Seemed appropriate.

 

The Orange One will make sure no one over takes us in the production of mine shafts or MAGA hats.

We must not allow a MAGA hat gap!

[LongRider]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

The Orange One will make sure no one over takes us in the production of mine shafts or MAGA hats.

We must not allow a MAGA hat gap!

Plus he'll have the biglyist board in the mine. 

[Martell Spy]

37 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Plus he'll have the biglyist board in the mine. 

It was a great farce of a movie, but way too optimistic with such a reasonable President. Kubrick really dropped the ball by not having the President compare dick sizes with the Soviet Premier.

America Is Not in Retreat. It’s a Rogue Superpower.
As Trump upends international relations, will other nations restore stability?

https://newrepublic.com/article/146459/america-not-retreat-its-rogue-superpower

 

Trump Ends Disgraceful Voter Fraud Commission Sham

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/01/trump-ends-sham-voter-fraud-commission.html

[LongRider]

Oh noes!  How will orange shit stain ever find all those illegal voters who cast so many votes for that woman?  

[Dr. Pepper]

Excerpts from the forthcoming Fire and Fury book have made this day a fucking blast.

Although, it's quite horrifying to think that Ivanka wants to be president and to know that conservative voters are so horrible and hate their lives, their children and their country so much that they'd elect her.

[drawkcabi]

I hear this and vision Doranged Donald doing a soft shoe to it on an empty stage:

 

[LongRider]

19 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

I hear this and vision Doranged Donald doing a soft shoe to it on an empty stage:

 

Well done.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, WinterFox said:

It'd be awful, stunningly awful. But if you think that -let's just say- 500 nuclear detonations are going to render the world uninhabitable you're quite simply mistaken. 

According to my readings it'd take far less than 500 nukes to make Earth uninhabitable to humans. Not sure what you're basing your assertion on but it seems to me that you're being far too optimistic. 500 nukes would most definitely end our species. 

[LongRider]

11 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

500 nukes would most definitely end our species. 

Plus many if not most animal and plant species.  

[Dr. Pepper]

The bacteria would live!  Germs ftw!  I wonder what they would evolve into next.

[OldGimletEye]

Grab your rifle and head the front.

Your libertarian overlords need you to fight.

Anyway, not really US politics but still is interesting.

https://promarket.org/inequality-imperialism-first-world-war/

Quote

World War I was probably the most momentous historical event in the past 100 years, arguably even laying the roots for the Great Depression and World War II. The possibility of the outbreak of the war among major powers was anticipated and discussed extensively in the period before 1914.

 

Quote

A similar view, which was at the origin of left-wing imperialist literature, was formulated by John Hobson in 1902. Hobson explained imperialism by the search for new and more profitable investment opportunities needed because the major economies faced a surplus of investible funds due to high inequality. In Hobson’s view, imperial conquest was the outcome of an unequal domestic income distribution. If inequality were lower, there would be greater domestic aggregate demand and no need for the rich to look for investment outlets externally. Hobson’s hypothesis was later incorporated, fully or in parts, by Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg and it remained influential for a long time, even as the war was going on and later as it ended, among the small group of Marxist economists. As Marxist influence in economics waned, it was gradually paid much less attention and was never tested empirically.
 
In a new paper, Thomas Hauner, Suresh Naidu, and I empirically explore the Hobson-Lenin-Luxemburg hypothesis using new historical data for the key belligerent countries (United Kingdom, France, Germany, and somewhat less for Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the United States).1) Most of these data have only recently become available. We divide the hypothesis into several testable parts.

 

[DMC]

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

@OldGimletEye, @Maithanet, @dmc515,

Can’t one recognize that Dubya was truly awful while simultaneously recognizing that Trump is significantly worse? I mean, in the last two days he has inflamed three of the most complicated situations in the world, one of which he did so while also bragging about the size of his “button.” He hasn’t started a pair of major wars yet, but he’s well on his way to outdoing Dubya in the category of “Worst President In My Lifetime.”

Of course Trump is worse.  The difference is (1) as OGE said it does not absolve Dubya's sins.  As someone who was politically socialized mostly during his administration, I will always hold unique antipathy toward him.  And (2) he just hasn't shat the bed yet man.  Call me cynical or out of touch, but I don't give a shit about tweets.  As an institutionalist I do care about all the norms Trump has rendered inert, but ultimately those pale in comparison to the greatest disasters of the Bush II administration.  Like I said, I'm not counting Trump out and fully anticipate he will live down to my lowest expectations.  But he ain't there yet.

7 hours ago, WinterFox said:

Goddammit, why does Nikki Haley have to actually give a damn about democracy? Even if its viewed through a horrible and twisted ideology, it's the surest way to my heart.

Yeah, I know it's blaspheme here, but I think she's actually done a somewhat admirable job.

7 hours ago, Fez said:

Hmm, I think my list would go:

Buchanan, Trump, Pierce, Hayes, A. Johnson, Harding, and maybe then W. Bush. Though Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore, and Grant were all pretty terrible as well. Frankly, we've had a lot of really terrible Presidents.

I know historians love these type of rankings, but I really don't think it's useful to compare "modern" presidents with the office as it was in the 19th century.  Before FDR, or at the earliest before his cousin popularized the bully pulpit, it was an entirely different undertaking than the centralized government the US has become.  As for post-FDR, Nixon, Dubya, and Carter would obviously have a three way dance for the worst title in most people's minds, but I nominate Truman.

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

If you get a chance, watch it. It's pretty good, like most Kubrick films.

Indeed.  While I haven't seen his earliest stuff, from Paths of Glory to Full Metal Jacket watch every single damn one (I don't like talking about Eyes Wide Shut...and I suppose that's appropriate given the title).  Even Barry Lyndon and all 187 minutes.  You sit and you watch damnit!

5 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Cuomo's state of the state was a pretty good speech, he presented himself as the anti-Trump, laying it on pretty thick.  I don't particularly care for the guy but he definitely sounds like he's running for President in 2020.  He breezed through a list of progressive issues too, seems like he's trying to pay the expected lip service to minimize a challenge from the left in the primary.  

Yeah he's gonna damn well try, but it's not gonna work.  As someone who grew up in (upstate) New York I've always kinda felt bad for the Cuomos.  Well, at least his dad totally missed the boat on his opportunity.  Andrew's just way too hated by the left to get out of the primary.  Unfortunate in some respects - a Trump v. Cuomo campaign would have the heartland running to their bomb shelters.

2 hours ago, WinterFox said:

It'd be awful, stunningly awful. But if you think that -let's just say- 500 nuclear detonations are going to render the world uninhabitable you're quite simply mistaken. 

I really..really don't care about this tangential discussion concerning nuclear winter and whatnot, but I'm absolutely loving optimistic WinterFox.

[Larry of the Lawn]

37 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

  As someone who grew up in (upstate) New York .

Have you ever seen the Deadbeats?  Best Dead cover band on the planet.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Have you ever seen the Deadbeats?  Best Dead cover band on the planet.

Can't say I have, in fact never heard of them.  By the looks of it they roam around New England?  Haven't been up there in a long while now.  Thanks.