EPTOn March 10 2015 14:29 ticklishmusic wrote:
Not sure where Republicans go from Iran all but pointing and laughing at them? They had a lot harsher criticism of Republicans and their competence (or lack thereof) than what you quoted there too.
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GreenHorizons
United States24120 Posts
Not sure where Republicans go from Iran all but pointing and laughing at them? They had a lot harsher criticism of Republicans and their competence (or lack thereof) than what you quoted there too. | ||
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jellyjello
Korea (South)664 Posts
According to the Associated Press, the university's executive cabinet has voted to overturn the ban, which prompted outrage nationwide and led one state legislator to consider an amendment to the California constitution to ensure the American flag could be flown on the campuses of state schools. On one hand, the now-vetoed decision to ban the American flag had the feel of student government run amok, as budding iconoclasts tried to make a statement about the moral complexities they're learning in History 101. Flags are "flown in instances of colonialism and imperialism" and they "serve as symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism," the statement explaining the original ban noted. Link This is so low even for Cali standard... I can see where this great country will be in 20-30 years from now. | ||
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Yurie
12118 Posts
On March 10 2015 14:52 jellyjello wrote: Link This is so low even for Cali standard... I can see where this great country will be in 20-30 years from now. I agree, thinking about remaking the state constitution over a this minor issue. | ||
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Jaaaaasper
United States10225 Posts
On March 10 2015 07:30 xDaunt wrote: I'm still failing to see what the US would get out of any prospective deal with Iran. Normalization of relations isn't enough. If a deal is struck, the big winner will be Iran. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, Iran is already winning big in the region. Its sphere of influence has increased dramatically during the Obama administration. Both Yemen and Iraq are well on their way to becoming Iranian proxies like Syria and Hezbollah. The thing that the US gets out of this deal is get Iran to actually allow inspections to their nuclear facilities, keep it so Iran is more than a year away from being able to make a bomb at any given time (so we know the time table of worst case next time they stop allowing inspectors), avoid another potential ground war in the middle east, and frankly working with Iran against ISIS is by far the lesser of two evils. Those are the objectives of any deal. | ||
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Introvert
United States4999 Posts
On March 10 2015 14:52 jellyjello wrote: Link This is so low even for Cali standard... I can see where this great country will be in 20-30 years from now. I'm not terribly surprised, this is the UC system. Good schools for the most part, but crazy students (from what I've seen the board and higher leadership are actually more reasonable). Recently students at UC Davis voted for divesting from Israel, but the Chancellor kind of said "sorry, but no." There was some technical reason like "we only refuse to deal with countries that the US government says fit into category X." The day after, a Jewish fraternity found swastikas on their house. A friend of mine who went to Irvine was really upset about this, and from what I could tell, so were lots of others. There were a lot of letters written. Not every student is quite this far out. | ||
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Sub40APM
6336 Posts
On March 10 2015 07:30 xDaunt wrote: I'm still failing to see what the US would get out of any prospective deal with Iran. Normalization of relations isn't enough. If a deal is struck, the big winner will be Iran. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, Iran is already winning big in the region. Its sphere of influence has increased dramatically during the Obama administration. Both Yemen and Iraq are well on their way to becoming Iranian proxies like Syria and Hezbollah. Uhm, Iraq began to become an Iranian proxy in 2003 and it was solidified when Bush -- to put some kind of less than odious smell on it -- allowed Maliki to gut the US trained troops and transform them into Shiite death squads. If the deal is struck the big winners might be Shiites but since they seem both more competent and more civilized than the current motley of American allies like the Wahabi nutters who are almost wholly responsible for the rise of Sunni terrorism I am okay with it. I can see why Bush and his policy wonks, on kissing terms with the House of Saud, are against it but whats your problem with it? Let Iran try to be the regional hegemon and get bogged down incessant counterinsurgency campaigns instead of American troops for once. | ||
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Leporello
United States2845 Posts
On March 10 2015 14:29 ticklishmusic wrote: I want to laugh at this. But I can't. The fact is, they're right. I don't know if it's unprecedented in "diplomatic history", but for the Republican party, it's outrageously hypocritical when compared to their rhetoric when their guy was in charge. I can just imagine the "outrage" if the Democratic-led Congress had jointly written letters to the UN protesting the potential of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2002-2003. The right-wing hypocrisy and stupidity know no bounds. I know this post is partisan-bashing, but it's too deserved on this issue. The hypocrisy and game-playing of this is atrocious, and should not be tolerated at all. This is something the Dems definitely need to throw in Republican faces come election time. All this time they're insisting that Obama's foreign-policy is "obviously" weak. You can read it in this thread, that we're supposed to just all go along like this is some agreed-upon weakness of his administration. And yet the Republicans, "masters of the art", pull this crap in unison? They try to undermine our nation's leader's negotiations before any deal is even fully proposed? Hmmm. That's simply childishness, I know of no other way to describe it. This post I'm writing is a bastion of maturity compared to what the Republicans did writing that letter to Iran. If the roles were reversed, I imagine words like "treason" being used. Obama has been an obvious improvement compared to what was, as I confidently assume most people in the world would agree. And he came to office at a time where resentment and distrust of our country was at a high. Maybe he isn't perfect, maybe there are faults to point out, but the people doing the pointing... smh. Shameless. | ||
zatic
Zurich15366 Posts
On March 10 2015 10:37 QuantumTeleportation wrote: American politics has been like this for ages. It's a shame really. Has it though? I find this extremely disturbing, even for US politics standards. Has there ever been a case of undermining the executive's international policy like that before? | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On March 10 2015 18:22 zatic wrote: Has it though? I find this extremely disturbing, even for US politics standards. Has there ever been a case of undermining the executive's international policy like that before? Congress refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and rejected the League of Nations, which is probably the clearest example. Republicans were livid that Wilson sat through the whole conference without consulting Congress and getting their input. We could have an interesting debate if it's worse to sabotage negotiations or let the president do all the work of getting a deal and then reject it. To play devil's advocate, I would point out no president has ever negotiated an arms control agreement without consulting Congress before either. Obama's been ignoring Congress and acting like whatever he gets with Iran is a done deal, and there have been deep concerns coming out of Republicans and Democrats. | ||
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zatic
Zurich15366 Posts
On March 10 2015 20:32 coverpunch wrote: Congress refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and rejected the League of Nations, which is probably the clearest example. Republicans were livid that Wilson sat through the whole conference without consulting Congress and getting their input. We could have an interesting debate if it's worse to sabotage negotiations or let the president do all the work of getting a deal and then reject it. To play devil's advocate, I would point out no president has ever negotiated an arms control agreement without consulting Congress before either. Obama's been ignoring Congress and acting like whatever he gets with Iran is a done deal, and there have been deep concerns coming out of Republicans and Democrats. The legislative not ratifying a treaty is a completely different thing - perfectly legitimate, and happens all the time in many countries. Sabotaging ongoing diplomatic efforts of your country seems not comparable to that and at least I find it way worse an affront. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On March 10 2015 20:44 zatic wrote: The legislative not ratifying a treaty is a completely different thing - perfectly legitimate, and happens all the time in many countries. Sabotaging ongoing diplomatic efforts of your country seems not comparable to that and at least I find it way worse an affront. Okay, but can you think of a time when an executive negotiated an arms control or nuclear nonproliferation treaty and ignored the concerns of the legislature? Or bypassed them by insisting he didn't need ratification? EDIT: Source artifcle from October 2014 No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it... But Mr. Obama cannot permanently terminate those sanctions. Only Congress can take that step. And even if Democrats held on to the Senate next month, Mr. Obama’s advisers have concluded they would probably lose such a vote. “We wouldn’t seek congressional legislation in any comprehensive agreement for years,” one senior official said. Get it? He wouldn't get ratification even if he had a Democratic majority. He's not listening to Congress at all. | ||
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zatic
Zurich15366 Posts
Anyway though it speaks of a current state of political dysfunction in the US that I find rather shocking. | ||
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puerk
Germany855 Posts
On March 10 2015 21:23 zatic wrote: I am not that familiar with US politics. It may very well be that the executive is as much to blame here for not following convention - I don't know. Anyway though it speaks of a current state of political dysfunction in the US that I find rather shocking. as far as i understand it, the dysfunction is considered a feature not a problem, because efficient and effective governments turn to unbeatable dictatorships | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On March 10 2015 21:23 zatic wrote: I am not that familiar with US politics. It may very well be that the executive is as much to blame here for not following convention - I don't know. Anyway though it speaks of a current state of political dysfunction in the US that I find rather shocking. On this last point we can agree. The executive has managed to seize so much power that the legislature has to resort to these kinds of antics to get his attention. Not exactly America's finest moment. | ||
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farvacola
United States18866 Posts
On March 10 2015 21:49 coverpunch wrote: On this last point we can agree. The executive has managed to seize so much power that the legislature has to resort to these kinds of antics to get his attention. Not exactly America's finest moment. Lol, yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what he meant. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22451 Posts
On March 10 2015 21:49 coverpunch wrote: On this last point we can agree. The executive has managed to seize so much power that the legislature has to resort to these kinds of antics to get his attention. Not exactly America's finest moment. Or the legislature has been so obstructive that the executive has to resort to circumvention to get anything done in the US. | ||
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always_winter
United States195 Posts
I think it's obvious to any student of American politics that the current state of affairs in Washington is lackluster at best, but it's also obvious this particular brand of partisan politics is and always has been the hallmark of a rather extremist sect of conservative lawmakers who, to the misfortune of the American people, are currently seated in power. | ||
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coverpunch
United States2093 Posts
On March 10 2015 21:51 Gorsameth wrote: Or the legislature has been so obstructive that the executive has to resort to circumvention to get anything done in the US. Circumvention that tramples on another branch and bypasses their right to debate and opposition seems to be a highly inappropriate way to "get anything done", particularly when he knows a ratification vote would fail even if his own party were in charge. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On March 10 2015 15:12 Jaaaaasper wrote: The thing that the US gets out of this deal is get Iran to actually allow inspections to their nuclear facilities, keep it so Iran is more than a year away from being able to make a bomb at any given time (so we know the time table of worst case next time they stop allowing inspectors), avoid another potential ground war in the middle east, and frankly working with Iran against ISIS is by far the lesser of two evils. Those are the objectives of any deal. The inspections mean nothing in and of themselves. The only thing that would matter is taking a nuclear bomb of the table permanently. And you are kidding yourself if you think this is going to prevent another ground war in the Middle East. If this treaty goes through, there will be monstrous arms race in the Middle East and an inevitable collision course between the Saudis and Iranians. Hell, the arms race has already begun in mere anticipation of this useless deal. | ||
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heliusx
United States2306 Posts
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