U.S. Politics: Dirt From Ukrainians, Bombs for Iranians, Shut Down Your Brainiums...

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Thanks, the response to that suggestion is making me feel like I'm in bizarro world where soldiers sign up to have cupcake parties or something.

The bolded is precisely why I put in the qualifiers that you then sniped at me about. I've lived in the US and I was fucking appalled the first time I went to the local supermarket and there's a full time dedicated recruiting office for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force attached to the supermarket in small-mid sized town Idaho.

Perhaps the thing I'm ignorant on is an assumption of what was meant by "kill Iraqis and Afghans" because even if collateral damage never happened and only combatants are killed, those combatants still fall under that statement. Again the original statement wasn't mine, if you'd like a more general one

"People enlisting into the military should be doing so aware of the fact they may need to kill people in a time of war, and when you are enlisting already at war you should specifically expect the possibility of killing people from the nations you are at war with". (1)

If you're all interpreting Bonnot's original statement as meaning "every member of the military goes around explicitly and intentionally slaughtering civilians all day" then I can see that that is indeed a very different statement to the one that was confusing me. My paragraph in quotes above is all I ever meant with my reply however.

Ok, I can break this down in a more conciliatory manner then:

8 minutes ago, karaddin said:

 

"People enlisting into the military should be doing so aware of the fact they may need to kill people in a time of war, and when you are enlisting already at war you should specifically expect the possibility of killing people from the nations you are at war with".

 

That statement is fair. In this circumstance I feel the need to point out that the disgusting American indoctrination machine makes this a virtual impossibility. The education system in this country is not conducive to teaching people critical thinking skills, and then there's the aforementioned pep rallies to consider. However, this statement is not objectionable and is wholly different than the precipitating sentiment.

9 minutes ago, karaddin said:

 

If you're all interpreting Bonnot's original statement as meaning "every member of the military goes around explicitly and intentionally slaughtering civilians all day" then I can see that that is indeed a very different statement to the one that was confusing me. My paragraph in quotes above is all I ever meant with my reply however.

Then we have reached understanding in this post. I speak for no one else but although Scott and I have fought many battles, and fought well, I could not see him unsupported in a stance against the raving insanity that kicked off this spat.

[Guest]

To get the discussion off the bizarre military discussion tangent, I'm not worried about the administration's purported desire to release the transcript and whistleblower report, and Senate Republicans aren't colluding with the administration to embarrass Dems. 

Trump ALWAYS says he's going to release something he has no intention of releasing. Even when something like the Mueller report is required to be released, Trump sends his stooges out to spread misinformation to control the news cycle. It's no different here.

And of course Senate Republicans voted unanimously to support the resolution: 1) it's a non-binding resolution, and 2) they are probably pretty fucking curious themselves to find out what's in the report, to make sure there's nothing radioactive in there.

And now we've found out that the administration is releasing a redacted transcript, when Trump oh so badly wanted to release the unredacted transcript. Barr will probably release the redacted transcript while simultaneously having a stroke and pledging allegiance to Satan, and then we'll get very important CNN think-pieces about how we need to establish a commission to promote healthy eating and exercise so that the Satanists at the highest levels of the Justice Department will lead longer, healthier lives.

[Durckad]

 

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

To get the discussion off the bizarre military discussion tangent, I'm not worried about the administration's purported desire to release the transcript and whistleblower report, and Senate Republicans aren't colluding with the administration to embarrass Dems. 

Trump ALWAYS says he's going to release something he has no intention of releasing. Even when something like the Mueller report is required to be released, Trump sends his stooges out to spread misinformation to control the news cycle. It's no different here.

And of course Senate Republicans voted unanimously to support the resolution: 1) it's a non-binding resolution, and 2) they are probably pretty fucking curious themselves to find out what's in the report, to make sure there's nothing radioactive in there.

I was just thinking the same thing. Trump has spent much of the last two years claiming he will do a thing and then not doing said thing, regardless of the circumstances of said thing. I don't think this is any different. 

To think this is some elaborate trap to trick Democrats is giving the current administration and the Republicans way too much credit and would require a level of coordination and intelligence that is far beyond their tiny brains and tiny hands.  When in doubt, assume incompetence.

Quote

And now we've found out that the administration is releasing a redacted transcript, when Trump oh so badly wanted to release the unredacted transcript. Barr will probably release the redacted transcript while simultaneously having a stroke and pledging allegiance to Satan, and then we'll get very important CNN think-pieces about how we need to establish a commission to promote healthy eating and exercise so that the Satanists at the highest levels of the Justice Department will lead longer, healthier lives.

As a non-Satanist, I have to say, I find this offensive to Satanists. How dare you impugn their morals by comparing them to Barr et all to them! I say good day and Hail Satan to you sir!

[Guest]

The more I think about it, the more I think this will be big. This is much easier to explain than the Russia thing and obstruction of justice. Guiliani is flapping his gums at anything put in front of him that even vaguely looks like a microphone, telling all and sundry that he did it and that the State Department told him to do it. 

Then Trump comes out and says "Yep, I did it". It's not "no collusion" anymore; it's "Yeah, I totally colluded, but that's okay." The Republican propaganda machine hasn't been able to settle on a single line of attack, so they're having difficulty providing a plausible counter-narrative for the Dittoheads to latch on to.

It's also a simple narrative. No hacking, no spies, no double agents. Just a whistleblower reporting possible observed breaches of conduct that were properly reported and deemed urgent concern by a Trump-appointed IG, that was then illegally blocked from being released to Congress. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump saw he got away with Russian collusion, so why not try Ukrainian collusion. 

[Jace, Extat]

6 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The more I think about it, the more I think this will be big. This is much easier to explain than the Russia thing and obstruction of justice. Guiliani is flapping his gums at anything put in front of him that even vaguely looks like a microphone, telling all and sundry that he did it and that the State Department told him to do it. 

Then Trump comes out and says "Yep, I did it". It's not "no collusion" anymore; it's "Yeah, I totally colluded, but that's okay." The Republican propaganda machine hasn't been able to settle on a single line of attack, so they're having difficulty providing a plausible counter-narrative for the Dittoheads to latch on to.

It's also a simple narrative. No hacking, no spies, no double agents. Just a whistleblower reporting possible observed breaches of conduct that were properly reported and deemed urgent concern by a Trump-appointed IG, that was then illegally blocked from being released to Congress. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump saw he got away with Russian collusion, so why not try Ukrainian collusion. 

"They all do it."

"It's a deep-state setup."

"They've been trying to impeach this president since before he was elected."

"Joe Biden did it first."

"He's a businessman."

"Why would he admit to it if it was a crime."

"Lalalalalalalalalalalalala."

There's the impending responses.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I sure hope you're right about that, Lich-King.  

It's remarkable to think about how, if all of what's coming out is true, how epic of a scandal this is and how it would probably end any other Presidency.  But in this age of Trump it's so hard to tell.

It sure does seem like this will be more difficult for Republicans to spin than Mueller or anything else.  So the question of course could come down to whether there's any break in GOP support of Trump in a meaningfully new way.  Someone did preview what sounds like a pretty good line along the lines of "Republicans are going to need to decide whether they are loyal to Donald Trump or loyal to the United States," and it's not an unfair question.  

This is what I'm getting at. The Russia investigation unfolded over months with occasional bursts of activity. This has gone from 0 to 60 in nothing flat. It's moving too fast for the propaganda to properly shape the narrative, @Jace, Basilissa's proposed narrative-sampling notwithstanding.

It will necessarily slow down once the investigation begins in earnest, but the most important part is cementing the narrative in the minds of the voters, and the Democrats simply have an easier task ahead of them than Republicans do. That's not to say that Democrats will succeed, but they can keep it much simpler than the Republican's convoluted justifications.

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Political ad I'm getting right now asks:  "Should Adam Schiff resign for his attacks on President Trump?" lol

I got a YouTube ad for the TB12 method today, then in the same video got another ad for Bernie Sanders. I know it may not sound like a big deal, but this sequence of events really upset me. 

I almost killed a guy this afternoon, I was so shaken...

... that I forgot to use the poison.

Ba-dum-tsss

[DMC]

30 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This has gone from 0 to 60 in nothing flat. It's moving too fast for the propaganda to properly shape the narrative, @Jace, Basilissa's proposed narrative-sampling notwithstanding.

Well, the Russia/Mueller investigation burst onto the scene with Comey's firing as well.  This is the inciting incident.  That it rather immediately resulted in an impeachment inquiry is based on context.  But I agree the Dems are better equipped to maintain and/or combat the narrative.  As I said, I think the Dems have some time to sort this all out, but they should continue to be as aggressive as possible.  And as you said, this is a much simpler scandal to consistently boil down into a cogent message, so the Dems have that going for them too.  Still, it's a long road to making any vote on impeachment politically advantageous, so we'll see.  Again, me want polling data now!!!  Don't care how..

[DireWolfSpirit]

Bill Weld is making me smile!!

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-weld-calls-death-penalty-161423388.html

[Jace, Extat]

13 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Bill Weld is making me smile!!

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-weld-calls-death-penalty-161423388.html

That fat orange fuck would look pretty great hanging from the end of a rope. To be honest though, I always imagined a raging mob getting the honors. Gaddafi style.

One thing I wouldn't be able to stomach would be a lethal injection. Anything other than scaphism is cheating justice, really.

[A True Kaniggit]

11 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

That fat orange fuck would look pretty great hanging from the end of a rope. To be honest though, I always imagined a raging mob getting the honors. Gaddafi style.

One thing I wouldn't be able to stomach would be a lethal injection. Anything other than scaphism is cheating justice, really.

Damn Jace.

If the country really goes to shit, I mean super shit. And they come for you in the night, I expect you to take no less than 11 of them with you.

[DMC]

28 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

That fat orange fuck would look pretty great hanging from the end of a rope. To be honest though, I always imagined a raging mob getting the honors. Gaddafi style.

Based on Stormy Daniels' testimony, he might derive some perverse pleasure from the "Gaddafi treatment."

[ants]

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The more I think about it, the more I think this will be big. This is much easier to explain than the Russia thing and obstruction of justice. Guiliani is flapping his gums at anything put in front of him that even vaguely looks like a microphone, telling all and sundry that he did it and that the State Department told him to do it. 

Then Trump comes out and says "Yep, I did it". It's not "no collusion" anymore; it's "Yeah, I totally colluded, but that's okay." The Republican propaganda machine hasn't been able to settle on a single line of attack, so they're having difficulty providing a plausible counter-narrative for the Dittoheads to latch on to.

It's also a simple narrative. No hacking, no spies, no double agents. Just a whistleblower reporting possible observed breaches of conduct that were properly reported and deemed urgent concern by a Trump-appointed IG, that was then illegally blocked from being released to Congress. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump saw he got away with Russian collusion, so why not try Ukrainian collusion. 

I tend to agree.  This looks black and white, and there is a simple message.  He broke the law for political advantage, exactly the same as Nixon did.  I wrote the post below yesterday, and said then that the Dems might impeach if they could decide how to make the issues clear and simple to the electorate.  Then this dropped in their laps.  

Pelosi has said there will be several streams to the impeachment proceedings.  I hope the first is Ukraine.  I hope the second is asking people to commit illegal activities with the promise of pardons (i.e. around the wall).  Both of these are black and white, both are about breaking the law for political gain.

I would also put Russia into a third stream.  Not in any expectation of anything coming from it.  Just as an excuse to cherry pick key people testifying and access to documents.  Just have it boiling along trying to get some "gotcha" moments from it.  But concentrate on the first two topics.  

On 9/24/2019 at 1:29 PM, ants said:

On the close Republican Senators, I think the impeachment calculus there could be interesting.  To get anything meaningful done the Dems have to win the presidency and get to 50 Senate seats in 2020.  I can see the impeachment calculus being a real headache for Republican Senators in purple states.  

IF the impeachment process does well enough to present a strong case that Trump should be impeached, those Republican Senators would face the issue of annoying middle of the road voters by not impeaching, or their own base by impeaching.  And if any Republican Senators voted for impeachment, then I think the optics for Trump are bad, even with the 'win' of the Senate voting against impeachment.  

The critical question, which is unknowable, is would the impeachment process be sufficiently clearly black and white that the messaging to middle America is that Trump broke the law and deserves to be impeached?  

 

 

[TrueMetis]

8 hours ago, DMC said:

So this justifies characterizing every member of the US armed forces as (at least) "volunteering to help kill Afghans and Iraqis?"

Sure, Canadian, British, etc forces too. Much like it would be entirely fair to say that in WW1 and WW2 you were volunteering to help kill Germans and Japanese.

8 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

You know what, I'm capable of admitting when I'm wrong. And I was wrong. You clearly know exactly what you're talking about, you just lack the capacity to make intelligent, or even basic, connective conclusions. I've lived in this country for a long time and seen a lot of military advertisements during football games and Survivor and episodes of House, M.D. Common features of such shameful videos are: men running towards smoke, men rappelling from walls and helicopters, men jumping out of airplanes, woman doing man things, promises of college, promises of skills training for eventual civilian employment, a guaranteed paycheck, "broadened horizons" and men standing at attention in front of an orgy of flags.

What I have never seen is a promise of getting to kill people. Ever.

You wanna claim that folks in the military all share responsibility for the deaths incurred in the execution of operations on foreign soil, you be my guest. I wouldn't even think to correct you. But the statement that individuals, many of them barely adults, who have been indoctrinated into believing the American armed forces represent courage and respectability "volunteered to kill people" is so abjectly wrong that I find myself in the altogether unprecedented position of defending soldja bois.

Maybe you silly foreigners don't understand that schools in America have fucking pep rallies to let army mans tell children how brave it is and how much you can improve your life if you join their cult. You do know what a school is, right? The things where children go to learn about the world and tend to be impressionable upon while they're there?

So actually I've come full circle again. You have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

Look, I don't really give a shit how indoctrinated Americans are. That doesn't give them a pass. We didn't look at the fucking Germans after World War Two and go "well fuck, they bought into the propaganda, guess they aren't responsible for the shit they did." Not realizing what you volunteered for doesn't change what you volunteered for. A German Soldier in WW2 would probably tell you they volunteered to protect their country and return it to greatness, but they volunteered to help commit genocide and invade other countries.

[Which Tyler]

4 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Sure, Canadian, British, etc forces too. Much like it would be entirely fair to say that in WW1 and WW2 you were volunteering to help kill Germans and Japanese.

Look, I don't really give a shit how indoctrinated Americans are. That doesn't give them a pass. We didn't look at the fucking Germans after World War Two and go "well fuck, they bought into the propaganda, guess they aren't responsible for the shit they did." Not realizing what you volunteered for doesn't change what you volunteered for. A German Soldier in WW2 would probably tell you they volunteered to protect their country and return it to greatness, but they volunteered to help commit genocide and invade other countries.

“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.

That word is Nazi. Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”

— Julius Goat

[sologdin]

face anus

this is from an RSB novel somewhere, surely.

there's a point, however, in calling attention to the inconsistency between the candidate's objections to john brown after serving in the armed forces for eight years during a time when involvement in unlawful imperialist wars of aggression was substantially likely--a likelihood borne out by the candidate's actual deployment.  

[Jace, Extat]

36 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Sure, Canadian, British, etc forces too. Much like it would be entirely fair to say that in WW1 and WW2 you were volunteering to help kill Germans and Japanese.

Look, I don't really give a shit how indoctrinated Americans are. That doesn't give them a pass. We didn't look at the fucking Germans after World War Two and go "well fuck, they bought into the propaganda, guess they aren't responsible for the shit they did." Not realizing what you volunteered for doesn't change what you volunteered for. A German Soldier in WW2 would probably tell you they volunteered to protect their country and return it to greatness, but they volunteered to help commit genocide and invade other countries.

A German soldier in WWII would probably tell you that he was drafted and there were no conscientious objectors in the Nazi state. Read a book you fucking fool.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, TrueMetis said:

Sure, Canadian, British, etc forces too. Much like it would be entirely fair to say that in WW1 and WW2 you were volunteering to help kill Germans and Japanese.

Look, I don't really give a shit how indoctrinated Americans are. That doesn't give them a pass. We didn't look at the fucking Germans after World War Two and go "well fuck, they bought into the propaganda, guess they aren't responsible for the shit they did." Not realizing what you volunteered for doesn't change what you volunteered for. A German Soldier in WW2 would probably tell you they volunteered to protect their country and return it to greatness, but they volunteered to help commit genocide and invade other countries.

Out of curiosity as you hold support personal in the American Armed forces responsible for the actions of line combat personnel do you also hold the American people paying the Taxes that provide support for those combat troops culpable as well?  

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Out of curiosity as you hold support personal in the American Armed forces responsible for the actions of line combat personnel do you also hold the American people paying the Taxes that provide support for those combat troops culpable as well?  

Ultimately that’s totally correct, isn’t it? Isn’t that why people withheld part of their taxes during the Vietnam War? And got jailed for it? If you don’t speak against the reprehensible actions of the military you are complicit. Most people, however, will shrug their shoulders instead of speaking out. And from this side of the fence it seems to me that saying anything against the US military (or, even, just kneeling at a football game) opens you to attack and accusations of being un-American or even a traitor.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Ultimately that’s totally correct, isn’t it? Isn’t that why people withheld part of their taxes during the Vietnam War? And got jailed for it? If you don’t speak against the reprehensible actions of the military you are complicit. Most people, however, will shrug their shoulders instead of speaking out. And from this side of the fence it seems to me that saying anything against the US military (or, even, just kneeling at a football game) opens you to attack and accusations of being in-American or even a traitor.

And that is certainly a point of view.  If my wife and I refuse to pay taxes to protest ongoing military conflicts who will care for my children?  

This entire discussion brings to mind Emerson’s quote:

Quote

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.

I value consistency it shows a degree of integrity and intellectual honesty.  That said it can be taken too far.  I think condemning every member of the American Military as a murderer for actions they may not have directly contributed to is too much.