U.S. Politics: The Bipartisan Dismemberment of the VA

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Obama does not, full stop, like being an ally of the Saudis. Especially given their brand of Islamic teaching and their proclivity for human rights abuses. He wants the US to get out of dodge and get away from them. He's stated this pretty publicly. 

Similar but not the same as Israel, save that he feels that Israel is really jonesing for war that he doesn't want to support. He seeks more diplomatic ends and more balanced power struggles in the region.

Mostly, Obama is a fatalist when it comes to the Middle East. He has seen intervention just fail over and over, and even the best intentions and ideas fall flat. He wants to help, but he doesn't want to do so with such uncertainty. 

Nobody particularly liked being an ally of the Saudis, but they have the most easily accessible massive oil reserves in the world and thus to a considerable extent control the price of oil. They're also one of the larger military and economic powers in an extremely contested region. It's not obvious how moving away from being their ally is going to make anything better since we can do even less from a position far away from them than we could before. Something similar is true of Israel: our patronage of them gives us a sort of leash we hold them by and the less they depend on us, the less constrained they are.

Also, Obama has hardly shunned intervention -- he shied away from deploying American troops, but he diplomatically supported "regime change" in several countries. This combination obviously turned out to be an unmitigated disaster orders of magnitude worse than Iraq which even managed to harm our European allies and may quite plausibly mean the end of the EU as we know it. It also meant that while we were negotiating with Iran on one matter, we were actively opposing them on another (Iranian "military advisers" were fighting in Syria along with the Russian ones).

[Kalnestk Oblast]

He didn't shun intervention before. He does now. After seeing what happened in Libya he has pretty much said nope. His advisors wanted us intervention in Syria and he eventually said no.

People change their views based on new info. I don't get why this is odd or so offensive.

[TrackerNeil]

On 4/18/2016 at 7:32 PM, Squab said:

Many straw men seem to indulge in generic oversimplifications

They're like libertarians that way.

[ants]

2 hours ago, Squab said:

Which part of Iran's plans to ignore the nuclear treaty, plans to wipe Israel off the map and terrible stance on equality and freedom are a reaction to US intervention?  Seems an odd shift of accountability.

Well, from your own link they plan to follow the treaty. They just aren't necessarily planning on following the extra stuff the UN put in its resolution. So everything around the nuclear elements is good to go. So you seem to be making up crap about the nuclear element.

I probably have some of the timings out, but in the late nineties Iran had reasonably progressive Presidents, certainly compared to much of the rest of the middle east, and was slowly opening up. That process was an up and down affair as far as success, but they were slowly moving forward in a lot of areas. The USA's hardening stance against Iran was a huge boost to the conservatives, as many of the improved social, human rights and free-market positions were associated with the USA. So their actions gave a boost to the conservatives, and hurt the progressives. Iran obviously can't let go most of the blame, but the US actions certainly hurt the move towards a better position.

2 hours ago, Altherion said:

Nobody particularly liked being an ally of the Saudis, but they have the most easily accessible massive oil reserves in the world and thus to a considerable extent control the price of oil. They're also one of the larger military and economic powers in an extremely contested region. It's not obvious how moving away from being their ally is going to make anything better since we can do even less from a position far away from them than we could before. Something similar is true of Israel: our patronage of them gives us a sort of leash we hold them by and the less they depend on us, the less constrained they are.

Also, Obama has hardly shunned intervention -- he shied away from deploying American troops, but he diplomatically supported "regime change" in several countries. This combination obviously turned out to be an unmitigated disaster orders of magnitude worse than Iraq which even managed to harm our European allies and may quite plausibly mean the end of the EU as we know it. It also meant that while we were negotiating with Iran on one matter, we were actively opposing them on another (Iranian "military advisers" were fighting in Syria along with the Russian ones).

How can anyone in their right mind consider what Obama has done as within a bulls roar of being the mess that was Iraq? You know, that disaster that created a power vacuum in the middle of the gulf, led to the creation of ISIS, burned USA relationships and money, and helped alienate many members of the Islamic faith?

The Saudi's were an ally of necessity, one that effectively back-stabbed the west for years with their support of extreme Islam. Without them, many of the conflicts of the last 15 years disappear. Being an ally didn't do anything to stop them at all, because the knew how much the USA needed them. Now that the US is independent in oil, it is completely sensible to start requiring changes with the Saudi's if the relationship is to continue. And its to be expected that causes a cooling in the relationship. This is all a good thing.

 

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, ants said:

How can anyone in their right mind consider what Obama has done as within a bulls roar of being the mess that was Iraq? You know, that disaster that created a power vacuum in the middle of the gulf, led to the creation of ISIS, burned USA relationships and money, and helped alienate many members of the Islamic faith?

I'm not saying Obama has personal responsibility for the result to the same extent that Bush did for Iraq, but the situation today is undoubtedly much worse than at any time during the Bush administration and Obama's strategy played a significant part in that.

Quote

The Saudi's were an ally of necessity, one that effectively back-stabbed the west for years with their support of extreme Islam. Without them, many of the conflicts of the last 15 years disappear. Being an ally didn't do anything to stop them at all, because the knew how much the USA needed them. Now that the US is independent in oil, it is completely sensible to start requiring changes with the Saudi's if the relationship is to continue. And its to be expected that causes a cooling in the relationship. This is all a good thing.

Except we're not energy independent yet, at least not to the extent that we can ignore the Saudis. They're demonstrating this right now by putting the fracking people out of business. And yes, they've not been a good ally, but they can be much worse if they choose to.

[TerraPrime]

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

 

Except we're not energy independent yet, at least not to the extent that we can ignore the Saudis. They're demonstrating this right now by putting the fracking people out of business. And yes, they've not been a good ally, but they can be much worse if they choose to.

Isn't it curious that launching multi-billion war efforts is okay as a retaliation against 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but paying 50 cents more a gallon at the pump is unacceptable, when the latter will actually do more to punish the people responsible for the terrorist attacks? The anti-west terrorist groups have deep ties to the Saudi money train. So why are we okay with keep giving them profits, part of which goes towards funding groups like ISIS? There is a cost to fighting Islamic terrorists, and it shouldn't be exclusively in the form of throwing soldiers, drones, and money at a situation for minimal impact on the root cause, when an alternative approach, one that is more likely to address the root cause, is available.

Imagine if we didn't have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the ME and instead divide that pot of  money to subsidize the hiked-up oil price from the Saudi barrels and to develop non-fossil fuel energy infrastructure - wouldn't that be nice?

[Altherion]

14 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

Isn't it curious that launching multi-billion war efforts is okay as a retaliation against 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but paying 50 cents more a gallon at the pump is unacceptable, when the latter will actually do more to punish the people responsible for the terrorist attacks? The anti-west terrorist groups have deep ties to the Saudi money train. So why are we okay with keep giving them profits, part of which goes towards funding groups like ISIS? There is a cost to fighting Islamic terrorists, and it shouldn't be exclusively in the form of throwing soldiers, drones, and money at a situation for minimal impact on the root cause, when an alternative approach, one that is more likely to address the root cause, is available.

Imagine if we didn't have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year in the ME and instead divide that pot of  money to subsidize the hiked-up oil price from the Saudi barrels and to develop non-fossil fuel energy infrastructure - wouldn't that be nice?

You are preaching to the choir. Indeed, for the trillions (and it is literally trillions) of dollars that we've spent in the Middle East in the past fifteen years we could have easily covered the country with solar panels, modernized the electric grid and subsidized electric cars (or implemented your favorite oil-free scenario, whatever it is) and told everyone in the Middle East that we simply don't care anymore. Unfortunately, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans think this way -- even those who are not in the pockets of the energy giants are unwilling to do anything dramatic. At best, we get halfhearted small measures with massive political backlash when these predictably fail due to much better funded competition from abroad.

[lokisnow]

I adore this article

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

granted, my thread title for this thread is kind of smug, but I meant for it to be provocative

I was in the wrong. 

So I am editing the thread title to be less typical smug liberal. 

because being smug is stupid.

 

 

[lokisnow]

in jobs/unemployment news:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0422-unemployment-benefits-20160421-story.html

Quote

The number of Americans seeking jobless aid fell to a four-decade low last week, a sign that employers are unconcerned about weak economic growth in the first three months of 2016.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits declined to a seasonally adjusted 247,000, the lowest reading since November 1973, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less-volatile figure, dropped 4,500 to 260,500. The total number of people receiving benefits has fallen 7.6% from a year ago to 2.14 million.

 

[Swordfish]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

I adore this article

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

granted, my thread title for this thread is kind of smug, but I meant for it to be provocative

 

 

Excellent.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

I adore this article

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

granted, my thread title for this thread is kind of smug, but I meant for it to be provocative

I was in the wrong. 

So I am editing the thread title to be less typical smug liberal. 

because being smug is stupid.

 

 

The point of being a liberal person is not to achieve superiority over others but to reach out and help all reach the same point you are at. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

I adore this article

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

This is a good article, but it is rather surprising to see Vox publish it -- they're usually firmly on the side of those the article labels smug.

[BloodRider]

Man that was a really long article to say as little as it did.  And also really long rambling way to say "Trump is gonna win in Nov, so fuck you liberals".  I want my 10 mins back.

[Ormond]

I certainly agree with the idea that no one should have condemned Kim Davis on the basis of her looks. And there is way too much classist dismissal of working class Whites as being "stupid" by people on both the Left and the Right.

But I don't get the following paragraph:

This, I think, is fundamental to understanding the smug style. If good politics and good beliefs are just Good Facts and good tweets — that is, if there is no ideology beyond sensible conclusions drawn from a rational assessment of the world — then there are no moral fights, only lying liars and the stupid rubes who believe them.

 Here I really don't understand the juxtaposition of "no moral fighrs" with "only lying liars". Does he not see lying itself as a moral issue? One can always think of extreme cases where lying is the better moral course (you don't answer "Yes" when the Nazis ask if Anne Frank is hiding in your attic), but if one believes leaders on the other side are generally lying in order to manipulate their followers, why is that not a moral judgment against those leaders? It seems a lot more than just "disputing facts" to me.

 

[Shryke]

17 hours ago, Altherion said:

I'm not saying Obama has personal responsibility for the result to the same extent that Bush did for Iraq, but the situation today is undoubtedly much worse than at any time during the Bush administration and Obama's strategy played a significant part in that.

How? Do enlighten us.

[Persicaria]

Excuse me, if there are any hiccups with this post. I seem to be having some difficulty quoting or replying.

Shryke I do think the United States Policy was rather backwards. However, to Altherion, I would argue that the response of our allies have been even more debilitating. One strong cohesive group, that has had success with fighting in Syria are the Kurdish. However, tensions between Turkey and the Kurds have assured that the United States has ignored them in their effort to foster "local" resistance. We also have Saudia Arabia who has refused to take on a single refugee because it could damage their economy. Their human rights record is abysmal, and they are currently strangling our oil production industry to make sure they are top dogs. Add into that Netanyahu who believes he has the right to come to America and disrespect it's president (never mind the idiots who openly encourage it) and it's pretty clear our friends are anything but. I just worry about the persistent strain of cold war mentality that exists within both parties to the detriment of our country. We have attempted to coopt regimes in the past only to find that dictators have a habit of destroying many independent outside parties and what survives dictatorship is often as extreme or worse and hardly ever our friend.

[Altherion]

6 hours ago, Shryke said:

How? Do enlighten us.

The Obama administration participated in the regime-change-by-bombing in Libya and strongly supported regime change in Syria diplomatically as well as providing equipment to forces opposing the Syrian government on the ground. The results were widespread civil war and millions of displaced refugees which, incidentally, motivated many other people from the region to try sneaking into Europe or at least Turkey with them. There was also the regime change in Egypt which Obama enthusiastically supported, but Egypt is blessed with a strong military which managed to revert to the status quo (you know things are bad when a military coup is the lesser evil). Of course, there is also the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan which Obama mostly inherited, but he certainly didn't make things better there.

6 hours ago, Persicaria said:

However, to Altherion, I would argue that the response of our allies have been even more debilitating. One strong cohesive group, that has had success with fighting in Syria are the Kurdish. However, tensions between Turkey and the Kurds have assured that the United States has ignored them in their effort to foster "local" resistance. We also have Saudia Arabia who has refused to take on a single refugee because it could damage their economy. Their human rights record is abysmal, and they are currently strangling our oil production industry to make sure they are top dogs. Add into that Netanyahu who believes he has the right to come to America and disrespect it's president (never mind the idiots who openly encourage it) and it's pretty clear our friends are anything but.

Yes, our allies in the Middle East are certainly of the "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" variety.

[Swordfish]

20 hours ago, Ormond said:

I certainly agree with the idea that no one should have condemned Kim Davis on the basis of her looks. And there is way too much classist dismissal of working class Whites as being "stupid" by people on both the Left and the Right.

But I don't get the following paragraph:

This, I think, is fundamental to understanding the smug style. If good politics and good beliefs are just Good Facts and good tweets — that is, if there is no ideology beyond sensible conclusions drawn from a rational assessment of the world — then there are no moral fights, only lying liars and the stupid rubes who believe them.

 Here I really don't understand the juxtaposition of "no moral fighrs" with "only lying liars". Does he not see lying itself as a moral issue? One can always think of extreme cases where lying is the better moral course (you don't answer "Yes" when the Nazis ask if Anne Frank is hiding in your attic), but if one believes leaders on the other side are generally lying in order to manipulate their followers, why is that not a moral judgment against those leaders? It seems a lot more than just "disputing facts" to me.

 

I took it to mean that assuming the person you disagree with is lying, rather than that they arguing from a good faith position you disagree with.  Certainly that is sometimes true, but it's troubling as a default position.

But I agree, it's ambiguously worded.

[Shryke]

19 hours ago, Altherion said:

The Obama administration participated in the regime-change-by-bombing in Libya and strongly supported regime change in Syria diplomatically as well as providing equipment to forces opposing the Syrian government on the ground. The results were widespread civil war and millions of displaced refugees which, incidentally, motivated many other people from the region to try sneaking into Europe or at least Turkey with them. There was also the regime change in Egypt which Obama enthusiastically supported, but Egypt is blessed with a strong military which managed to revert to the status quo (you know things are bad when a military coup is the lesser evil). Of course, there is also the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan which Obama mostly inherited, but he certainly didn't make things better there.

Yeah, wtf are you on about?

First of all both Lybia and especially Syria were already undergoing civil war long before the US did anything.

The idea that the Obama Admin "enthusiastically supported" the Egyptian revolution is absurd and the US was criticized by many for their fairly tepid support for the protesters and continued backing of long-time US ally Mubarak long past when the situation had gotten really bad. And saying Egypt is "blessed with a strong military which managed to revert to the status quo" is basically a long-winded way of you saying "I haven't ever followed news out of Egypt for the last like 5 years".

You are, frankly, spouting completely false bullshit to try and forward this ridiculous narrative.

[Kalnestk Oblast]

Awesome - one of McCain's campaign managers was arrested for making meth.