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I just want one reporter to ask how steel slats stop drug trafficking when you can just put the drugs through the slats.  Lycus fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 05:04
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Lightning Knight posted:Nah that's actually really fuckin' arguable and also Russia and China flatly aren't in a position to execute empire on the scale we do nor will they be for decades at minimum. They can't just wish upon a star for a dozen aircraft carriers and trillions of dollars of advanced equipment. You are both short-sighted and ignorant. Short-sighted because your worldview is limited to the present. Yes, neither Russia nor China have anywhere near the amount of military power — not to mention the capacity to project it globally — as the USA does. But that's today. China for one has been making massive investments in their military. Combined with their rapid scientific and technological advancement, 20 years from now they will be in a very different place. You are also ignorant (maybe due to your age?) because you don't realize the extent to which American imperialism contains the ambitions of China and Russia. For example, did it occur to you that China would invade Taiwan in a heartbeat if it wasn't for USA's repeated demonstration of willingness to get involved in such conflicts? Similarly, NATO — of which USA is the largest supporter — is what contains the Russian sphere of influence. An isolationist America would be celebrated by both of those adversaries. It would be an epic disaster for everyone else.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:04
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So am I correct that a clean CR was never even passed? So even if Trump backs down he literally has nothing else to sign? Is there time for congress to pass a new CR before a shutdown?
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Dec 21, 2018 05:04
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Lightning Knight posted:The United States maintains de facto racial segregation and concentration camps for refugees and immigrants, and routinely elects Nazis to office as well. If you want to play the whataboutism game we'll be here all night. I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure locking up a few thousand immigrants (which is lovely), is the same as full-scale extermination of the Uighurs and I think it's really gross to equate the two in order to score a discussion point.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:04
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Archonex posted:Russia and China are literally existent walking, talking, humanitarian crises in the form of semi-functioning nation states. Yes, the perfidious, semi-functioning chinese, who are a failed state and definitely not designing and building the subway cars for the chicago and boston. I bet they even poo poo in the streets still! enraged_camel posted:You are also ignorant (maybe due to your age?) because you don't realize the extent to which American imperialism contains the ambitions of China and Russia. For example, did it occur to you that China would invade Taiwan in a heartbeat if it wasn't for USA's repeated demonstration of willingness to get involved in such conflicts? Similarly, NATO — of which USA is the largest supporter — is what contains the Russian sphere of influence. Ironic sentiments because taiwan only exists due to American imperialism
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Dec 21, 2018 05:05
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He's saying steel slats because he's currently slobbing all over US steel making companies. It's just another grift.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:05
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Herby Scott posted:So am I correct that a clean CR was never even passed? So even if Trump backs down he literally has nothing else to sign? Is there time for congress to pass a new CR before a shutdown? Passed the senate. The wall/disaster funding is an amendment to that from the house, which now goes back to the senate. I believe it could fail senate/senate strips it out, sends back and house can take it up again, but timing would be tight, yeah.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:06
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archangelwar posted:Communist movements took a variety of forms and outcomes leading up to the war (and following), and the "Soviet style Communism" you are referencing from post-war imperial gamesmanship was directly influenced by the drive to survive multiple existential threats and a great reshuffling of the world power structure that defined the post-war period. If Italy doesn't fall to fascism, "Soviet style Communism" would mean something very different to us today. I get what you are saying. If there wasn't such an aggressive, concentrated push by the powers at the time to stamp out communism, some better system might have emerged and flourished. I agree with that. After all, there are plenty of capitalist democratic states that failed along the way as well. I also understand that Soviet style communism was a reaction to real foreign threats. However, I can't excuse the system that developed under Stalin. It's basically saying that this government did what it had to do to survive and to accrue power in order to survive, so it can't be blamed for its failings. Isn't that the same excuse Western powers use for their misdeeds?
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Dec 21, 2018 05:06
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CAPS LOCK BROKEN posted:NATO is a loving joke and its going to end up in the same dustbin as CENTO and SEATO. Trump could blow up NATO tomorrow and it would go down as the most successful military alliance/transnational organization in history.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:06
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enraged_camel posted:An isolationist America would be celebrated by both of those adversaries. It would be an epic disaster for everyone else. I'm going to ignore your attacks on my competence and say simply that this is all a matter of framing. It presumes that it is a moral good that we make the problems of everyone else our problems and use hard power to "contain" the supposed grave threats of Russia and China. Will Russia and China be dicks to their neighbors? Yes, obviously, as they always have, and as we are too. Does that mean we should continue to be 50% of the world's military spending to boss them around, in a manner that is literally killing the planet? Lol gently caress no. We disagree on fundamental principles and clearly will not be budging, and this debate has now gone on for something like 25 pages. I think I'm done for now.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:07
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The other day I suddenly remembered those reports from June about Trump habitually ripping up documents with his bare hands, leaving staffers with the job of jigsawing and taping them back together because they are required by law to be archived. Remember that poo poo? I looked into it just now and it doesn't look like it's been debunked, denied, or even acknowledged much since the initial reports came out. I mean I know that it's just one of many many things that are utterly deranged, moronic, and possibly illegal that this fucker has done, which have then swiftly been ignored. But that one specifically struck me and I've been kind of marveling at how blatantly loving weird and crazy it is. Just thought I'd remind everyone. https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/donald-trump-documents/index.html
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Dec 21, 2018 05:08
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Lightning Knight posted:The United States maintains de facto racial segregation and concentration camps for refugees and immigrants, and routinely elects Nazis to office as well. If you want to play the whataboutism game we'll be here all night. China, a nation of more than a billion people, one of the largest economies on the planet (second only to the USA), which is growing in influence rapidly in Africa especially as it builds military bases overseas, is a "regional power". Meanwhile, the United States' human rights are on par with China, which is sending millions of Muslims into concentration camps for re-education or liquidation, and which has established a "social credit" system which was previously the stuff of dystopian sci-fi novels.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:08
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not a cult posted:A forever war without and end in sight is a "bout of dumbassery". We've interfered more than just in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given the choice of the current lovely geopolitical situation or the far worse situation of Russia succeeding in doing their damnedest to get people into power all over the world that would put minorities both racial and LGBT in literal loving genocide camps (And in the case of some countries have parties literally wanting to do just that atm.) i'll go with the lesser evil for the time being. Both are remarkably lovely, but one is far worse of an evil than the other. I mean, what do you think the world's gonna look like if a nation like Russia has it's way and becomes the next global hegemony? Right now they're doing everything they can to destabilize the EU and US by helping far right authoritarian types get into power. It's not just going to be an empty "if/or" binary where one side wins and nothing else happens. There's going to be consequences, and the current policy is going to affect things going forwards. And that's not even getting into what it'd do for the rights of people all across the world to have either of those two powers calling the shots in the background.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:08
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Russia is an unstoppable turbo-monster while simultaneously crippled into inaction by sanctions. China is capable of conquering the world which is why the most they have done the last couple of decades is grab a fake island. Hell, China would not even possess as much economic power over southeast asia if it weren't for the US loving up TPP.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:09
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Wicked Them Beats posted:I don't disagree with you, but I'm not sure locking up a few thousand immigrants (which is lovely), is the same as full-scale extermination of the Uighurs and I think it's really gross to equate the two in order to score a discussion point. I don't actually think those things are equivalent, but I also don't think making it into a moralistic white man's burden argument about how American imperialism is the least evil option is acceptable framing because it presumes that "not be dicks" simply isn't a possible outcome. China should not genocide the Uighurs, that is bad, but that doesn't justify maintaining American empire so we can do the lovely things instead.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:09
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Lightning Knight posted:Nah that's actually really fuckin' arguable and also Russia and China flatly aren't in a position to execute empire on the scale we do nor will they be for decades at minimum. They can't just wish upon a star for a dozen aircraft carriers and trillions of dollars of advanced equipment. As 2016 has shown us, undermining democracy doesn't require aircraft carriers. It simply requires some technical know how, some money, and confidence that there won't be significant retaliation.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:10
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Trump and the HFC will cave like the paper tigers they are. They might wait until Sunday to cave and have a 36 shutdown if they are really in the mood, but the government will be open on Monday morning, and the wall still won’t be funded. How many times have they made threats, then conceded saying this is the last time they will agree a deal without the wall? Shutting down the government over the wall just doesn’t play well with the majority of the country, and even when Nancy takes over, I don’t see anything more than weekend shutdowns taking place.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:11
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Loving the false dichotomy of either USA being the world police vs the holocaust 2.0
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Dec 21, 2018 05:11
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Unzip and Attack posted:As 2016 has shown us, undermining democracy doesn't require aircraft carriers. It simply requires some technical know how, some money, and confidence that there won't be significant retaliation. If you believe that the primary reason that Trump is president is because Russian intelligence put him there that is in fact a fantastic argument against the continuing existence of American empire because if so we're loving morons and don't deserve power. Edit: really just the fact that we elected Trump at all for any reason is a great loving argument against allowing America to run things tbh lol.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:11
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Lightning Knight posted:I don't actually think those things are equivalent, but I also don't think making it into a moralistic white man's burden argument about how American imperialism is the least evil option is acceptable framing because it presumes that "not be dicks" simply isn't a possible outcome. It isn't possible. Seriously, do you live on the same planet as the rest of us?
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Dec 21, 2018 05:12
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In other news, Graham continues to be the biggest piece of human poo poo in history https://twitter.com/LindseyGrahamSC/status/1075943510413664256
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Dec 21, 2018 05:12
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enraged_camel posted:It isn't possible. Seriously, do you live on the same planet as the rest of us? Yes, I do! And silly me, I forgot, better things aren't possible, we simply must accept the white man's burden and keep our aging empire afloat for as long as we can get away with until the oceans boil over and the crops fail, this certainly is the path to a brighter future.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:13
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archangelwar posted:Russia is an unstoppable turbo-monster while simultaneously crippled into inaction by sanctions. China is capable of conquering the world which is why the most they have done the last couple of decades is grab a fake island. No one is saying that. The point is that they're using non-military means of intervening in other countries affairs. Which is a far more insidious sort of means of control given how the people in charge of those two countries look at their own population. Not that it justifies the US's means of pursuing a global hegemony, but you're out of your goddamn mind if you think that their means of control doesn't have a lot of loving horror behind it too. They're both terrible in some pretty nasty ways. It's a different sort of global hegemony, but one the world is evidently quite susceptible too at the moment. The cost of it is that when successful it puts people into power that are often anti human rights at best and outright genocidal at worst.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:13
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Enkmar posted:Loving the false dichotomy of either USA being the world police vs the holocaust 2.0 True, it doesn't seem to be an either-or. We have multiple genocides ongoing AND the USA being the world police, independent of each other.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:14
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Koalas Massacre posted:I'm dying at the idea of a Nazi polite enough to spray "the n word" on his genocidomobile. 💀💀💀 Probably thought he wouldn't get beat up. Not the fullest water bottles in the gerbil cage.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:14
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Archonex posted:
I have bad news for you re: america's minorities. The bullshit about uighur concentration camps is a good trial balloon for when America does it for real in a decade or two. Half of America likes the idea and can't wait to put muslims into camps themselves. Archonex posted:No one is saying that. The point is that they're using non-military means of intervening in other countries affairs. Which is a far more insidious sort of means of control given how the people in charge of those two countries look at their own population. The projection and pot kettle attacks here are off the charts: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/cuban-hip-hop-scene-infiltrated-us-information-youth https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cpp-calls-out-foreign-ngos-stirring-colour-revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_for_Cultural_Freedom (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 21, 2018 05:14
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Archonex posted:No one is saying that. The point is that they're using non-military means of intervening in other countries affairs. Which is a far more insidious sort of means of control given how the people in charge of those two countries look at their population. It's a different sort of global hegemony, but one the world is evidently quite susceptible too at the moment. The cost of it is that when successful it puts people into power that are often anti-rights at best and outright genocidal at worst. Do you like, know the kind of people we like to put into power in other countries? There's an entire political party in the US that is dedicated to eliminating LGBT people which until recently controlled every level of government lol, it's not like we have a better track record here. You can't sit here and go on about the evil people Russia puts into power and just sweep Pinochet under the rug, for example. Lightning Knight fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 05:14
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enraged_camel posted:You are both short-sighted and ignorant. i'll cut you a deal. we'll keep the 7th fleet in taipei and withdraw from everywhere else
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Dec 21, 2018 05:18
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Lightning Knight posted:There's an entire political party in the US that is dedicated to eliminating LGBT people which until recently controlled every level of government lol, it's not like we have a better track record here. Gay marriage wasn't even a policy brought about by democratic change- an unelected body of elderly judges decided it had to be legal after a challenge from a wealthy white person who didn't want to pay 363,000 in estate taxes on her partner's greenwich village condo. In typical American fashion LGBTQ issues became weaponized as another human rights excuse to bomb people in the middle east: quote:On the other hand, leading candidate Hillary Clinton pledged to fight the terrorist virus in its origins, and therefore justified her party’s platform of military intervention in the Middle East. She othered these Muslim majority countries by describing heinous acts directed against the LGBTQ population: “The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive. And we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values. […] we know already the barbarity that we face from radical jihadists is profound. In the Middle East, ISIS is attempting a genocide of religious and ethnic minorities. They are slaughtering Muslims who refuse to accept their medieval ways. They are beheading civilians, including executing LGBT people. They are murdering Americans and Europeans, enslaving, torturing and raping women and girls. […] The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry. And an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans."[26]
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Dec 21, 2018 05:20
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Man, remember when Gin and Tonic wrote that essay about how the policy of non-intervention on the left is poorly formulated and presented unconvincingly?
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Dec 21, 2018 05:20
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BigRoman posted:I get what you are saying. If there wasn't such an aggressive, concentrated push by the powers at the time to stamp out communism, some better system might have emerged and flourished. I agree with that. After all, there are plenty of capitalist democratic states that failed along the way as well. Right, but the system developed under Stalin as represented in post-war actions is what you used in discussion of Western influence on the rise of fascism in Italy. Stalin was a bad, bad man, his power and influence were entirely situational. I am not sure where you intend to go with this discussion because it was you who drew the parallel between pre-war movements in Italy and post-war imperialist USSR to support a moral relativist argument in favor of US superiority. Even in light of the fact that the US is directly responsible for the conditions that both created and fed an imperialist USSR.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:20
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Willo567 posted:In other news, Graham continues to be the biggest piece of human poo poo in history fun fact: if Lindsey Graham opened the Ark of the Covenant he'd never die because he can't see reality.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:22
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Tibalt posted:Man, remember when Gin and Tonic wrote that essay about how the policy of non-intervention on the left is poorly formulated and presented unconvincingly? Man, silly me, I should've realized the idea of not being the Stormtroopers killing the Ewoks is simply not an option.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:23
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The never-ending, salt-filled and scatter-shot arguments populating this thread seems to have missed discussing: https://youtu.be/9ScCMHhnkUk So I repost, hoping we watch. And for more god drat more of it. Thongs and plastics.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:23
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you guys ever see pirates of the 20th century? p good soviet action flick imho https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wMlKm_UlYXY anyways, people seem passionate enough about this topic that it might be a good idea to create a thread devoted to discussions about us foreign policy and America’s place in the world
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Dec 21, 2018 05:24
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Lightning Knight posted:Yes, I do! And silly me, I forgot, better things aren't possible, we simply must accept the white man's burden and keep our aging empire afloat for as long as we can get away with until the oceans boil over and the crops fail, this certainly is the path to a brighter future. What if, say, President Bernie Sanders used our position as global hegemon to move things towards a more multilateral structure? That might be better than deciding that because the USA is bad we should abrogate all hard power involvement. also there's a hecka lot more soft power involved in our empire than hard, not that Donald realizes that Becoming isolationists is probably preferable to being shithead imperialists, but I don't think those are necessarily the only two options. And in the particular case of the Syrian Kurds, it might be nice if they were still alive when a less terrible and stupid person comes into power.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:24
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Lightning Knight posted:Do you like, know the kind of people we liked to put into power in other countries? There's an entire political party in the US that is dedicated to eliminating LGBT people which until recently controlled every level of government lol, it's not like we have a better track record here. You can't sit here and go on about the evil people Russia puts into power and just sweep Pinochet under the rug, for example. Last I checked, we didn't recently try to put our muslim population into literal re-education through labor death camps. Or straight up have progressives assassinated in the modern era if they dare to speak out against the government in the case of Russia. Or even exist at all, in the case of Chechnya and the purges that happened over there. Likewise, even with the Republicans in power and being their lovely selves there's been a tremendous outcry against their bullshit. Over there? They just get disappeared half the time. Personally, speaking, i'd rather not live in a world where i'm at risk of being murdered for the dire crime of being born different. And that looks a hell of a lot more likely if those two nations get to have an uncontested say when it comes to the policies of other nations on a global scale. Archonex fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 05:24
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Lightning Knight posted:Man, silly me, I should've realized the idea of not being the Stormtroopers killing the Ewoks is simply not an option. how on earth is this a relevant analogy to Syrian Kurdistan
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Dec 21, 2018 05:25
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archangelwar posted:Right, but the system developed under Stalin as represented in post-war actions is what you used in discussion of Western influence on the rise of fascism in Italy. Stalin was a bad, bad man, his power and influence were entirely situational. I am not sure where you intend to go with this discussion because it was you who drew the parallel between pre-war movements in Italy and post-war imperialist USSR to support a moral relativist argument in favor of US superiority. Even in light of the fact that the US is directly responsible for the conditions that both created and fed an imperialist USSR. I misunderstood and misspoke. I thought the argument was about the west suppressing communists in Italy after WWII.
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Dec 21, 2018 05:27
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Tibalt posted:Man, remember when Gin and Tonic wrote that essay about how the policy of non-intervention on the left is poorly formulated and presented unconvincingly? i'm actually genuinely a little surprised by the angle that the US was inevitably going to betray the kurdish socialists, so we should betray the kurdish socialists
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Dec 21, 2018 05:27
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