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It's way simpler than what's being suggested re:Putin anyway. Fox News is coming out against it, so that's end of story for Venezuela intervention. But please don't act like campaign Trump's foreign policy maps perfectly with president Trump. His stance on "interventionist" policy is totally incoherent; peace with NK at all costs (with nothing to show for it), but Iran is a terrorist organization that we can't work with. We have to do active measures against Maduro and we're back to square one with Cuba, but other dictators are great. (What's actually happening is that Trump's limited attention span is being taken advantage of by the hawks in his cabinet).
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May 9, 2019 18:32
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Sodomy Hussein posted:It's way simpler than what's being suggested re:Putin anyway. Fox News is coming out against it, so that's end of story for Venezuela intervention. Does he have any isolationist cabinet members left? I'm pretty sure they've all been forced to resign and he's left with representatives of the standard Republican foreign policy. So the consequent incoherence is heavily resulting from the dissonance between a executive with isolationists tendencies but lacking firm ideas being surrounded by hawks with very firm ideas. Since this is the conspiracy thread, I'll say that the fall of the isolationist wing of the cabinet almost certainly wasn't coincidence.
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May 9, 2019 18:42
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SickZip posted:Does he have any isolationist cabinet members left? I'm pretty sure they've all been forced to resign and he's left with representatives of the standard Republican foreign policy. So the consequent incoherence is heavily resulting from the dissonance between a executive with isolationists tendencies but lacking firm ideas being surrounded by hawks with very firm ideas. Stephen Miller is still in there. But there's a critical shortage of right-wing figures who are both isolationist and not totally insane, leading to them gradually being replaced by more "traditional" hawk Republicans.
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May 9, 2019 18:52
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SickZip posted:Does he have any isolationist cabinet members left? I'm pretty sure they've all been forced to resign and he's left with representatives of the standard Republican foreign policy. So the consequent incoherence is heavily resulting from the dissonance between a executive with isolationists tendencies but lacking firm ideas being surrounded by hawks with very firm ideas. I'm pretty sure Trump has no meaningful isolationist tendency and it's mostly election messaging for him.
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May 10, 2019 11:06
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Panzeh posted:I'm pretty sure Trump has no meaningful isolationist tendency and it's mostly election messaging for him. he has an "I am intensely lazy" tendency, which makes him significantly less inclined to interventionism than your average president. mostly because if he tried to do something he would have to go to a lot of boring meetings with generals where they don't have to smile and nod when he starts talking about how he totally could have hosed Rhea Perlman.
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May 10, 2019 15:57
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Sodomy Hussein posted:It's way simpler than what's being suggested re:Putin anyway. Fox News is coming out against it, so that's end of story for Venezuela intervention. There's also quite a good bit of just parroting the last thing he was told. The man is evidently extremely easy to influence and manipulate. Talks to chickenhawk, wants war, talks to non-interventionist, wants peace, talks to Putin, wants what's best for Russia. The man has no thoughts that weren't just put there by someone else moments earlier. It's not some huge manchurian candidate conspiracy, it's just that he's an absolute moron.
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May 10, 2019 16:11
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Panzeh posted:I'm pretty sure Trump has no meaningful isolationist tendency and it's mostly election messaging for him. Nah, there's a lot you can say is mostly election messaging from him but his disinclination toward standard american foreign policy and levels of interventionism has been pretty obvious and turned up in his comments well before he was running. There's no firm principals or moral stances about it, he just seems temperamentally disinclined toward it due to not seeing the kind of easy profit he understands in most of it. SickZip fucked around with this message at 17:42 on May 10, 2019 |
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May 10, 2019 17:34
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SickZip posted:Nah, there's a lot you can say is mostly election messaging from him but his disinclination toward standard american foreign policy and levels of interventionism has been pretty obvious and turned up in his comments well before he was running. There's no firm principals or moral stances about it, he just seems temperamentally disinclined toward it due to not seeing the kind of easy profit he understands in most of it. when the big wet boy says the things i like to hear, it is because he really believes them all the other stuff is just posturing tho
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May 10, 2019 18:09
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Sodomy Hussein posted:It's way simpler than what's being suggested re:Putin anyway. Fox News is coming out against it, so that's end of story for Venezuela intervention. Oh, I'm not. Trump doesn't give a poo poo one way or another about intervention, but a sizable portion of his base sure does. Him realizing this in campaign season is not  DIRECT EVIDENCE of taking orders (lmao) from a foreign power.
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May 10, 2019 18:59
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:when the big wet boy says the things i like to hear, it is because he really believes them https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/ilanbenmeir/that-time-trump-spent-nearly-100000-on-an-ad-criticizing-us From 1987 quote:"For decades, Japan and other nations have been taking advantage of the United States," the letter declares. "The saga continues unabated as we defend the Persian Gulf, an area of only marginal significance to the United States for its oil supplies, but one upon which Japan and others are almost totally dependent." His views of US foreign policy are incredibly consistent
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May 10, 2019 19:14
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Right that's why he's trying to start a war with Iran, his incredibly consistent belief that the Persian Gulf is only of marginal significance to the United States
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May 10, 2019 19:15
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VitalSigns posted:Right that's why he's trying to start a war with Iran, his incredibly consistent belief that the Persian Gulf is only of marginal significance to the United States nah, that's just posturing. when the big wet boy said what I wanted to hear. that was his true soul. the alternative does not bear contemplation
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May 10, 2019 19:52
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VitalSigns posted:Right that's why he's trying to start a war with Iran, his incredibly consistent belief that the Persian Gulf is only of marginal significance to the United States I understand the temptation to think your opponents/enemies are some weird irrational conflux of all that is bad and evil but its loving up your ability to understand events and people. The themes and ideas of his foreign policy then is the same as it was on the campaign is the same as it is now whenever he's off the leash. The difference is circumstance. He might be naturally disinterested in the existing international order and the military actions used to enforce it but even Trump's stated reason for his opposition to involvement in the region was that it wasn't profitable not that it wasn't moral. No one can accuse Iran's enemies of being unwilling to pay. And for him personally, hostility toward Iran is one of most valuable thing he can offer to his backers and to elements of the Republican party and Washington that he has to keep at least neutral to survive. SickZip fucked around with this message at 20:14 on May 10, 2019 |
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May 10, 2019 19:58
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SickZip posted:I understand the temptation to think your opponents/enemies are some weird irrational conflux of all that is bad and evil but its loving up your ability to understand events and people. Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:nah, that's just posturing. when the big wet boy said what I wanted to hear. that was his true soul. the alternative does not bear contemplation lol
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May 10, 2019 20:30
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hot take: trump and obama are janus faces of the same persona, in that people ascribe grand ideologies to folk who're in actual material fact abject cowards terrified to admit they don't really know why they even wanted this job in the first place
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May 10, 2019 23:52
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proposed conspiracy: its actually really simple to determine that the USA is crusin' for a brusin' with uninflected data but everyone reading that data is stupid as gently caress and--at best--reading chat threads on discussion forums to tell them their opinions so they get juxtapositions like this  and are earnestly confused why folk want to exfoliate democrats with a cheese grater and trepanate conservatives with a flagpole. but this does not happen because stories as simple as this paradoxically do not make for good clickbait outside insular forums so instead we get to re-litigate how obama was nominally and categorically worse than trump on immigration until we all loving die by climate.
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May 11, 2019 03:12
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One doesn't need to ascribe if it's been explictly stated and professed by the person in response to a direct question. Which Christian Realism has been by Obama. Edit: and why not start a thread on that other topic? It's gotten tangentially touched on in others threads, there's some interest. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 05:55 on May 11, 2019 |
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May 11, 2019 05:49
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SickZip posted:Trump's stated reason for his opposition to involvement in the region was that it wasn't profitable not that it wasn't moral 1980s Imperialism in the Middle East didn't have a profit motive? That's the argument you're making in order to rationalize Donald Trump's statements as consistent and rational?
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May 11, 2019 20:48
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Russia Is Targeting Europe’s Elections. So Are Far-Right Copycats. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/world/europe/russian-propaganda-influence-campaign-european-elections-far-right.html
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May 12, 2019 22:55
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God can you even imagine how much more hosed everything would be if Trump had the cognitive capacity to pull off a Cheney/Halliburton style grift?
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May 12, 2019 23:20
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BrandorKP posted:Russia Is Targeting Europe’s Elections. So Are Far-Right Copycats. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/world/europe/russian-propaganda-influence-campaign-european-elections-far-right.html This article is conflating two separate things: the emergence of a distinctly reactionary and web-savvy far right in Europe and the allegations of widespread Russian interference in foreign elections. If you actually read this closely then you can see how the author is basically stitching two separate but related stories together to create the impression of a vast and sinister thread of an unprecedented nature. I think the reality is more prosaic: the European far right has been rising for a decade and familiarity with the internet is now more or less universal, so of course we're going to see more right-wing political coordination on Facebook or WhatsApp. I imagine you could write the exact same stories about the left or the centre because every political tendency is now using the internet to coordinate and pull votes. Imagine if someone in the Russian media cited Hilary Clinton saying "Pokemon go to the polls" as an example of the sinister Democratic plot to use the internet to win the election. I mean, no poo poo the far right is using the web to coordinate, it would be more shocking if they weren't doing that. The other half of this article is about the specific threat of Russian trolls disrupting western elections. The author at least acknowledges what should be obvious by now, which is that these campaigns are literally only are hurtful as our media allows them to be: The New York Times posted:A longstanding debate has been whether this material changes behavior or votes, especially as tech companies have worked to stamp it out. But security researchers suggest that swinging elections is a stretch goal for this kind of campaign, if that. The primary point is to muddle the conversation, make people question what is true, and erode trust. The thing is, this is catnip for both Russia hawks and American liberals. The Democratic party is a walking contradiction right now, torn between an increasingly social democratic grassroots base and a thoroughly liberal/pro-business elite that wants to keep the country's politics frozen in some weird simulcarum of the Obama years. They smooth over that contradiction they need to keep the conversation muddled. Stories about the unique dangers of foreign attacks on the election system and repeated insinuations that criticism of the status quo gives aid and comfort to America's enemies is a powerfully attractive narrative for a party that doesn't know how to square the demands of its donors with the needs of its own base. That's not to say that there are no coordinated campaigns by the Russians to inject additional hysteria and confusion into elections. But if those campaigns were reported on in a manner more proportionate to their likely impact then they'd be a marginal footnote of passing interest. Ironically enough it is the Democrats and liberal media who have most enhanced the effectiveness of these campaigns. If America were a healthier country with a less divided population then people would not be jumping at shadows like this. The pathetic obsession with these Russian psy-ops campaigns is such a telling sign of American decline.
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May 12, 2019 23:38
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Some research on the targeted ads social media manipulation stuff is starting to come out publicly. Seem like it can swing things +/- 2-4 %. That is either suppressing that amount or encouraging it, and both could be done in a given election. I heard on the radio today that apparently this is also being confirmed by campaigns though they are spending a lot more to do it and will probably not be making public what they find.
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May 30, 2019 04:21
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According to a recent article by Martin Luther King biographer David Garrow, recently released transcripts of FBI surveillance indicate that on January 5, 1964 King stood by and laughed while his friend raped a woman in a Washington DC hotel room. The FBI would have been recording in an adjacent room. The FBI transcripts are linked in the article and are accessible online. The actual recordings may still exist in the national archives. Are the transcripts credible? Do the recordings exist? Why would the FBI record a crime and not intervene? More analysis is available in the politoons thread, where a brief discussion took place.
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May 31, 2019 05:37
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mountaincat posted:Are the transcripts credible? Do the recordings exist? Why would the FBI record a crime and not intervene? Not touching the rest of this with a ten foot pole, but are you for real? Do you think the Cold War era FBI would give a poo poo about some nobody getting raped if they can get dirt their most hated leftist instead? Or for that matter that they wouldn't do the same for whatever their pet peeve is today?
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May 31, 2019 08:31
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If the FBI's goal was simply to discredit King, then intervening makes sense. Arresting King for being involved in the rape would not only discredit him but also prevent him from organizing labor strikes and civil rights protests. On the other hand, if the FBI's primary interest was in identifying communists, then it might make sense for them to avoid revealing their operation by intervening. Fake or not, why didn't the FBI ever do anything with the recordings and transcriptions? King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, more than 4 years after the rape allegedly took place. The theory that the FBI was primarily concerned with identifying communists is consistent with the fact that the transcriptions were never used. And if this theory is true, then there would be no particular reason for them to fake the transcriptions.
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May 31, 2019 14:33
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lol why would you believe the FBI about anything related to MLK?
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May 31, 2019 17:58
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It might also make sense for them not to intervene if they were making it up
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May 31, 2019 18:22
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mountaincat posted:If the FBI's goal was simply to discredit King, then intervening makes sense. Arresting King for being involved in the rape would not only discredit him but also prevent him from organizing labor strikes and civil rights protests. On the other hand, if the FBI's primary interest was in identifying communists, then it might make sense for them to avoid revealing their operation by intervening. They made it up is one possible reason. Another is that whatever they collected was inadmissable because Hoover was simply running a domestic spying program (on dozens if not hundreds of public figures) that was meant mainly as a dirty tricks operation to help like-minded politicians and bureaucrats should the need arise. They also did all sorts of stuff that would damage the credibility of a court case, like send MLK a letter politely asking him to kill himself.
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May 31, 2019 18:46
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Sodomy Hussein posted:They also did all sorts of stuff that would damage the credibility of a court case, like send MLK a letter politely asking him to kill himself. That letter was sent on November 21, 1964, a little less than a year after the recordings under discussion were supposed to have taken place. The letter references orgies and other sexual perversions, and those acts are recorded in the transcriptions in some detail. The letter does not mention anything about a rape however. King did not commit suicide, and the FBI didn't release the evidence as threatened. That could be because the recordings were obtained illegally, as you suggested. Note that the letter did not say it was coming from the FBI. In order for it to be credible it would need to mention things that King himself was actually worried about leaking. Otherwise King sees wild allegations about fake events from some anonymous person, and ignores the letter. In other words, something in that letter is true. At the very least the adultery accusations are true, because those have been corroborated.
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May 31, 2019 19:15
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It could also be they didn't release it because they made it all up.
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May 31, 2019 21:32
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Until the FBI actually produces a real recording that has been authenticated by independent observers any leaks from them mean just about jack and poo poo.
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May 31, 2019 21:47
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I am sure the FBI helped MLK cover up being accessory to rape because they respected him so much and didn't want to embarrass him. I am also sure Donald Trump won't release his tax returns because they're so flawless it would make every other candidate look so bad that the 2020 election wouldn't even be fair.
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May 31, 2019 21:52
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Suppose the FBI created a fake transcript which indicates they recorded a crime taking place in an adjacent hotel room but did nothing about it. What would they do with this transcript?
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Jun 1, 2019 16:29
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They could have had any number of plans for what to do with it that they ended up not executing for one reason or another, or they could have created it just in case they thought up a plan for it later. Are you really arguing that the transcript must be real because the FBI is Perfectly Rational and wouldn't ever do something stupid or poorly-planned because, uh
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Jun 1, 2019 16:58
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VitalSigns posted:They could have had any number of plans for what to do with it that they ended up not executing for one reason or another, or they could have created it just in case they thought up a plan for it later.
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Jun 1, 2019 18:08
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If the FBI had real evidence of a rape, they would have mentioned it in the suicide letter. If the FBI had fake evidence, they would not have mentioned it because it would have weakened the credibility of the letter. The FBI did not mention any form of sexual assault in the suicide letter. This suggests any evidence they might have had was fake.
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Jun 2, 2019 02:26
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YOu really think the FBI would do that? Just go out in the world and tell lies?
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Jun 2, 2019 02:31
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Theory: The FBI recorded and transcribed what they thought was a crime. Those are the transcriptions we have. Perhaps an agent had been overzealous about interpreting the evidence in order to please their superiors, as Rent-A-Cop suggested. Later, the FBI re-examined the evidence or gathered new evidence and determined no crime had occurred. This explains why the suicide letter did not mention it.
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Jun 2, 2019 04:58
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mountaincat posted:Later, the FBI re-examined the evidence or gathered new evidence and determined no crime had occurred. This explains why the suicide letter did not mention it. aka The Simplest Explanation lmao
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Jun 2, 2019 05:02
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to be clear: the FBI was absolutely digging for dirt and imploring MLK to kill himself before he was killed by a white nationalist (fascinating coincidence, that) but this mountaincat posted:If the FBI had real evidence of a rape, they would have mentioned it in the suicide letter. is dumb as hell.
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Jun 2, 2019 05:08
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