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Prester Jane posted:It needs to be the top headline every single day when the POTUS is literally compromised by a hostile foreign power. Stop trying to normalize things that should not be normalized. just LOL at this post. If #resistance keeps beating this drum then everyone will realize Trump is a bad dummy and Hillary will be president! Don't forget to call out logical fallacies and bad grammar! Real life is just like The West Wing! Previa_fun fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Aug 4, 2018 |
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Aug 4, 2018 21:18
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i think helping to whip up red-scare 2.0 is a bad idea cause it's already showing signs of ending up like the last one did. people in this thread are being called russian agents, bernie's a russian agent, black lives matter organizers are russian agents, antifa are russian agents. seems like it's just a strategy to paint the left as traitors 
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Aug 4, 2018 22:49
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i usually like your posts prester jane, but quite frankly I just don't feel the russia stuff. I have yet to see anyone make a case for why I should care aside from "foreign government!", which is far too reminiscent of all the other war-mongering and saber rattling i've been exposed to, so i just kind of check out at that point. also, i hate the idea of the US as world police cause we're just strolling around the world, loving poo poo up, and saying "well, if it was someone else they'd be meaner!". it's just not a very convincing argument to me, and I want the US to end that role
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Aug 4, 2018 22:56
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Main Paineframe posted:You say it's a "dire threat to our country and our way of life", but so far, all Putin seems to really want is for Russian billionaires to be treated with the same slap-on-the-wrist mentality American billionaires are treated with. Letting rich people get away with murder is as American as apple pie and Klan marches. i mean this right here is a pretty good leftist reason to think cozying up to a foreign oligarch is bad
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Aug 4, 2018 23:15
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Cease to Hope posted:i mean this right here is a pretty good leftist reason to think cozying up to a foreign oligarch is bad You can get a twofer and fix the core system and then neither foreign or domestic oligarchs can gently caress us real bad in the mouth
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Aug 4, 2018 23:17
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Cease to Hope posted:i mean this right here is a pretty good leftist reason to think cozying up to a foreign oligarch is bad it's a reason to think cozying up to any oligarch is bad
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Aug 4, 2018 23:26
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especially an oligarch who has a how-to guide for making things an even worse kleptocratic shithole and practical experience doing it if real life hands you a cartoonishly evil walking example of how capitalism is evil, why not run with it?
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Aug 4, 2018 23:36
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pretend like that last sentence was rewritten to sound less dumb
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Aug 4, 2018 23:47
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Cease to Hope posted:especially an oligarch who has a how-to guide for making things an even worse kleptocratic shithole and practical experience doing it sure, trump is great as an example of that i'm just not sure why we have to lean on nationalism to achieve that. especially red scare nationalism that is already being used to try to silence us
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Aug 4, 2018 23:56
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Prester Jane posted:The Russian sock puppet telling us all that we need to ignore Russia's influence on our government is something to behold, I tell you what. my sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for somethingawful poster sexpig by night. i am pro-life and take no pleasure in reporting this
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Aug 5, 2018 00:16
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Prester Jane posted:It needs to be the top headline every single day when the POTUS is literally compromised by a hostile foreign power. Stop trying to normalize things that should not be normalized." "Compromised" is some extremely weasel language, and you could say the same thing about pretty much any country the US is allied with, including many that are at least as bad as Russia. There is nothing remarkable or unique about the president (or any other politician) being favorable towards another bad country. The sole aspect of Russian interference that is at all noteworthy are the attempts to hack/gain access to private information for the purposes of influencing the election, and that's a separate thing from the president having a strong pro-Russia bias as a result of his relationship with them. Prester Jane posted:It's difficult to ascertain the degree, but it's obvious that the president is compromised and that his actions and decisions are being heavily influenced by a hostile foreign power. It's blatantly obvious that Trump is in acting Putin's agenda and has been for some time- for starters look at the pro-russian revisions that the Trump team made to the 2016 RNC campaign platform. You're getting a lot of mileage out of "hostile" here, but I'm seeing no reason to care about that separately from Russia itself being lead by a pretty lovely right-wing government, and you can say the same about other countries the US is allied with. And I'm not really sure whether it's even better for us in the first place to be allied with a bad country than what's going on here (and does it even make sense to call it "hostile" when it's actually just "allied with the right-wing faction of American politics"? You can call that the same thing as hostile, but if you do a lot of other US allies could also be considered hostile!). Main Paineframe posted:I can't help but notice that asking "what specifically is Trump going to do to destroy America on Putin's behalf?" is literally guaranteed to cause the Russia maniacs to fall back on snarky evasive remarks like this. I've asked the question tons of time to people and have yet to get a single response. It's almost as if they can't actually answer the question, and were just relying on repeating "hostile foreign power" over and over again to scare people into a baseless panic without even knowing what they're panicking about. What I usually get is the fairly reasonable "they want to empower the American far right," but that comes back to what I said prior in this post about "how is that hostile, as opposed to 'allied with an opposing American political faction?'" And being allied with the American right is absolutely bad, but once you've reduced things to that you can suddenly point to many other international relationships of a similar nature. Spatula City posted:What is really the difference between being owned by foreign oligarchs vs. being owned by American oligarchs? There's no reason to even "cede" this point; there's no chance of the US coming under the control of Russian oligarchs, because I can guarantee that American ones have considerably more power and there's no foreseeable outcome where Russian oligarchs take over the US or something. Cease to Hope posted:i mean this right here is a pretty good leftist reason to think cozying up to a foreign oligarch is bad No one is arguing it's good; they're just arguing that it isn't, as Prester Jane said, something that should be blaring at the top of the headlines constantly, and A DIRE THREAT TO AMERICAN BY A HOSTILE FOREIGN POWER or whatever scary words someone wants to use to describe it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Aug 5, 2018 |
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Aug 5, 2018 00:36
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I think we're definitely at a point where we should all admit that HA was right. Russia should definitely be a big part of the Democratic Party's 2018 messaging. It's clearly a topic that unifies those who can be persuaded to support Democrats.
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Aug 5, 2018 00:58
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Prester Jane posted:I like how the Overton window has shifted to "of course Russia has compromised our government, but they are no worse than anyone else". That's because there's absolutely no evidence at all that Russia (or any other nation) has the kind of influence that you're talking about. It's almost certain that they hosed with the 2016 election. It's likely they hosed with earlier elections too and it's almost a guarantee that they're going to gently caress with the 2018 elections. The solutions to that particular problem aren't really political at all, though. Beyond that, what you seem to be seriously missing is that Russia is run by a hard right oligarchy and their interests naturally align with - wait for it - Republicans who really want the US to be run by a hard right oligarchy. Donald Trump isn't compromised by Putin, he just loving agrees with him. The fact that people in his campaign organization are likely super dirty with Russia money and influence makes total sense because of course Putin was cheating in favor of the guy who is on his side.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:04
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Paradoxish posted:That's because there's absolutely no evidence at all that Russia (or any other nation) has the kind of influence that you're talking about. https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1025486353629368321 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8BwqzzqcDs https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-defense/key-u-s-lawmakers-want-to-boost-israels-38-billion-defense-aid-package-idUSKCN1GB2NQ
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Aug 5, 2018 01:25
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If you drafted an international treaty barring countries from interfering in the electoral politics of other countries, the United States would not sign that treaty
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Aug 5, 2018 01:28
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The Muppets On PCP posted:https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1025486353629368321 are you trying to say that jews secretly control the government or what Democrats are fully capable of having absolutely terrible opinions about Israel without being controlled by a shadowy conspiracy.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:31
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Paradoxish posted:are you trying to say that jews secretly control the government or what yes, that's literally what i'm saying. you sussed it out. good job
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Aug 5, 2018 01:32
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The Muppets On PCP posted:yes, that's literally what i'm saying. you sussed it out. good job No, really, what are you trying to say? Tweet and link dumps are an awful way to respond to a single line of a post. I have no clue what your point is.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:33
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Paradoxish posted:No, really, what are you trying to say? Tweet and link dumps are an awful way to respond to a single line of a post. I have no clue what your point is. I'm glad you assumed his lack of explicit comment on that post meant he's a paranoid antisemite. Very reasonable and fair.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:41
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B B posted:I think we're definitely at a point where we should all admit that HA was right. Russia should definitely be a big part of the Democratic Party's 2018 messaging. It's clearly a topic that unifies those who can be persuaded to support Democrats. literally every poll done shows that Russia is so low in voters' priorities it barely even makes the statistical chart at all. Or did I just 
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Aug 5, 2018 01:52
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kidkissinger posted:I'm glad you assumed his lack of explicit comment on that post meant he's a paranoid antisemite. Very reasonable and fair.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:55
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kidkissinger posted:I'm glad you assumed his lack of explicit comment on that post meant he's a paranoid antisemite. Very reasonable and fair. He literally responded to one line about foreign countries not having an appreciable level of influence over the US government with a tweet about Cory Booker defending Israel and a video clip of the 2012 DNC voting to add language on Jerusalem to its platform.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:55
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Paradoxish posted:Beyond that, what you seem to be seriously missing is that Russia is run by a hard right oligarchy and their interests naturally align with - wait for it - Republicans who really want the US to be run by a hard right oligarchy. Donald Trump isn't compromised by Putin, he just loving agrees with him. The fact that people in his campaign organization are likely super dirty with Russia money and influence makes total sense because of course Putin was cheating in favor of the guy who is on his side. I have to disagree here. Trump absolutely looks like he's been compromised.  This was right after their secret meeting in which Trump was alone with Putin for two hours. Putin looks triumphant while Trump looks bedraggled and defeated, jet lag aside. Right afterward he also went on several rallies, most likely to boost his confidence, which he hadn't done for a while before that. Trump tends to go on rallies when he's dealt some sort of personal defeat that he actually feels. Trump agrees with Putin's ideals about a mafia style oligarchy. However, that doesn't preclude him being compromised either. Think about Trump's lifestyle. He's a deeply strange and immoral person who regularly engages in criminal activities. Trump is a sex pest and regularly sexually assaults women from his own words. It would be absolutely trivial to maneuver him into a situation where some fifteen year old girl (who says she's eighteen) is sent by someone who wants dirt on him in order to obtain leverage. All she has to do is be blonde, attractive and pretend not to find him revolting for less than an hour. Trump is someone who is deeply stupid, wealthy enough to be useful, sympathetic to fascism/authoritarianism and is willing to be used. Of course people have blackmail on him. I'd go so far as to say that probably a lot of people have blackmail on him. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Aug 5, 2018 |
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Aug 5, 2018 01:55
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One other thing regarding the Russia stuff is that I feel like the sort of folks in places like our own Russia thread are heavily understating the negative side effects of this coverage. Most of the people themselves are fairly reasonable and (...usually) won't randomly accuse people of being Russian sockpuppets or whatever, but a common refrain in discussions with them seems to be the idea that you should obviously give a lot of focus to the Russia issue because it's obviously bad and there's no downside to doing so. But there is a downside, and it's reached the point where it isn't at all uncommon for people on the left to be accused of being "useful idiots" or whatever, or to deliberately conflate contemporary Russia and the USSR. Even if they don't do that stuff, it's still happening and is something that needs to be weighed against the potential benefits of that coverage (which are questionable at best, particularly given how little the coverage focuses on pretty much the only reasonable "solution" - improved election security). People also mock the "Russia fervor could result in racism" angle (and I've actually never mentioned this angle myself until this post), but I could easily understand someone from Russia or with a Russian-sounding name being anxious about it and potentially facing backlash if things go much further than they already have.
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Aug 5, 2018 01:56
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sexpig by night posted:literally every poll done shows that Russia is so low in voters' priorities it barely even makes the statistical chart at all. It was definitely sarcasm.
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Aug 5, 2018 02:02
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Paradoxish posted:He literally responded to one line about foreign countries not having an appreciable level of influence over the US government with a tweet about Cory Booker defending Israel and a video clip of the 2012 DNC voting to add language on Jerusalem to its platform. don't forget the reuters article quoting lindsey graham and chris coons saying the 38 billion in military aid to israel passed in 2016 is the bare minimum while tacking on an extra 200 million Ytlaya posted:and it's reached the point where it isn't at all uncommon for people on the left to be accused of being "useful idiots" or whatever, or to deliberately conflate contemporary Russia and the USSR. i'm not sure that it's deliberate so much as it is people are really dumb and genuinely have no idea the ussr dissolved over 25 years ago and russia isn't a communist state The Muppets On PCP fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Aug 5, 2018 |
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Aug 5, 2018 02:06
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Condiv posted:i usually like your posts prester jane, but quite frankly I just don't feel the russia stuff. I have yet to see anyone make a case for why I should care aside from "foreign government!", which is far too reminiscent of all the other war-mongering and saber rattling i've been exposed to, so i just kind of check out at that point. also, i hate the idea of the US as world police cause we're just strolling around the world, loving poo poo up, and saying "well, if it was someone else they'd be meaner!". it's just not a very convincing argument to me, and I want the US to end that role It's not a convincing argument because it's wrong, the u.s. military is out and about to make sure nobody gets too uppity about the 5% of the global population that is American consuming 25% of the world's resources.
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Aug 5, 2018 02:17
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Ice Phisherman posted:I have to disagree here. Trump absolutely looks like he's been compromised. wow. you can get all that from a photo?
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Aug 5, 2018 02:46
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Condiv posted:wow. you can get all that from a photo? No, but it's a telling photo right after a significant event. The rest is extrapolated from what we already know. Trump is not subtle in the slightest. Everyone know he's an idiot who will sexually assault blonde women and anyone who pays attention knows that he's distrubingly interested in underage teens. It's not hard to create an asset out of someone like Trump.
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Aug 5, 2018 02:53
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I literally respect the fake melania conspiracy people more than 'this photo of a 70 year old man who probably has actual dementia looking odd proves he's been compromised'.
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Aug 5, 2018 02:59
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Donald trump is indeed not subtle. If he were 'compromised' he'd be out there saying Putin is the greatest guy on earth and he was way smarter than stupid crooked hillary and that's why trump won. "Folks we got a plan to win, it's so smart, no one ever tried it before."
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Aug 5, 2018 03:03
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sexpig by night posted:Donald trump is indeed not subtle. If he were 'compromised' he'd be out there saying Putin is the greatest guy on earth and he was way smarter than stupid crooked hillary and that's why trump won. Considering Trump praises Russia and Putin every time he talks about either of them, it wouldn't surprise me if he actually did this at some point.
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Aug 5, 2018 03:09
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the problem with focusing on russia is that every republican should be jailed and russia at best only gets you there with a handful
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Aug 5, 2018 03:39
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Ice Phisherman posted:No, but it's a telling photo right after a significant event. tell me more, qanon
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Aug 5, 2018 04:45
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The problem with the idea of Trump being blackmailed over being a pedophile is that we already know he's a pedophile and it hasn't resulted in any harm coming to him whatsoever. There's also very little, if anything, in his history to suggest that he even recognizes the concept that he could face consequences for anything. Like, seriously imagine trying to convince Donald Trump that 1) he did something wrong, and 2) if people knew about it then he couldn't escape punishment. It seems to me a more parsimonious explanation that Trump loves Putin and Russian oligarchs because he's enamored with wealth, status, & power; because they flatter him; and because they share similar ideologies. Which is the same reason he's gone out of his way to cozy up to the vilest American oligarchs. The cure for this being to assert a positive ideology that dismantles oligarchy in general, not to hone in on some kind of evil particular to Russians Also, any ideology that leads to calling people itt a Russian agent is probably as dangerous to democracy as Trumpism
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Aug 5, 2018 05:52
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i admit i am a russian agent but posting on SA isn't on the clock
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Aug 5, 2018 06:21
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I am, how you say, Russian Guyovich. ...wait...
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Aug 5, 2018 06:48
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Mornacale posted:It seems to me a more parsimonious explanation that Trump loves Putin and Russian oligarchs because he's enamored with wealth, status, & power; because they flatter him; and because they share similar ideologies. it's way more transactional and less abstract than that. he's been sucking up to russia since the 80s when he tried to get a development deal in moscow, then later in the 2000s he heavily courted russian investors who were looking to park a bunch of cash in the us
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Aug 5, 2018 07:25
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Prester Jane posted:The Russian sock puppet telling us all that we need to ignore Russia's influence on our government is something to behold, I tell you what. 0_0
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Aug 5, 2018 07:36
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Condiv posted:i think helping to whip up red-scare 2.0 is a bad idea cause it's already showing signs of ending up like the last one did. people in this thread are being called russian agents, bernie's a russian agent, black lives matter organizers are russian agents, antifa are russian agents. seems like it's just a strategy to paint the left as traitors the thing about the first red scare was that it was at least politically effective for somebody. lol
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Aug 5, 2018 07:40
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