US Politics Mega-thread - Page 420

On September 11 2013 06:37 farvacola wrote:
The notion that it was Russia and Russia alone that brought Syria into acquiescence is laughable, and can only be attributed to a juvenile understanding of how international relations can end up panning out. That's ok though, the notion that one must either point and laugh or slavishly worship isn't exactly new to the conservative mindset

On September 11 2013 05:50 Sbrubbles wrote:


Deregulate is pretty much the least loaded term there. You can call "erode the welfare state" and most of what comes after it loaded terms, but the first three are pretty straight-up what neoliberalism set out to do (as in, neoliberalism largely embraced those exact terms).

On September 11 2013 06:45 xDaunt wrote:

Here's what Obama has accomplished with his bungling in Syria:

1) Obama has legitimized Russia as a powerbroker in the Middle East, thereby weakening American influence. Obama didn't craft this deal. Putin did. More importantly, Putin is laughing his ass off because by giving Obama a chance to save face with his "red line" retardation, Putin is now in a position to guarantee that Syria will remain a Russian ally with Assad in power. Yeah, the US gets to avoid a war. Russia gets the real strategic win. By association, Iran does, too.

2) Obama has shown our allies and the rest of world just how weak he is. His word doesn't mean anything. Let's consider Iran, for just a moment. How do you think that they are interpreting what just happened? Are they more or less likely to believe Obama if he draws a "red line" for their nuclear development activities? Let's think about Israel. How confident are they are that American will enforce such a "red line" with Obama power? Obama has shown the world considerable weakness, and everyone is taking notice. It will have consequences down the line.

On September 11 2013 06:45 xDaunt wrote:

Here's what Obama has accomplished with his bungling in Syria:

1) Obama has legitimized Russia as a powerbroker in the Middle East, thereby weakening American influence. Obama didn't craft this deal. Putin did. More importantly, Putin is laughing his ass off because by giving Obama a chance to save face with his "red line" retardation, Putin is now in a position to guarantee that Syria will remain a Russian ally with Assad in power. Yeah, the US gets to avoid a war. Russia gets the real strategic win. By association, Iran does, too.

2) Obama has shown our allies and the rest of world just how weak he is. His word doesn't mean anything. Let's consider Iran, for just a moment. How do you think that they are interpreting what just happened? Are they more or less likely to believe Obama if he draws a "red line" for their nuclear development activities? Let's think about Israel. How confident are they are that American will enforce such a "red line" with Obama power? Obama has shown the world considerable weakness, and everyone is taking notice. It will have consequences down the line.

On September 11 2013 06:56 KwarK wrote:

America is weaker abroad at the moment than it was this time ten years ago. Her people and her allies are increasingly war weary.

On September 11 2013 07:01 sam!zdat wrote:
we are!

On September 11 2013 07:06 farvacola wrote:
Calling it a win for Obama is just as stupid as calling it a loss.

On September 11 2013 07:10 Sermokala wrote:
Obama was seeking an escalation of the conflict. He wrote a red line in the sand and then asked congress to give permission to strike. He couldn't even get enough votes in the part of the legislative wing that he does control in as a democrat. Then once he realized he had no way of keeping his credability anymore he conseded to a russian led plan for peace.

Kerry was squaking the whole way about how assad wouldn't go to the negotiating table and how we really needed to keep america's credibility in the region. The amount of face that Obama has lost though this whole endeavor means that either he utterly failed on his plan and got bailed out by the Russians trying to embarrass him or hes a shitty politician that doesn't know how to make himself look good and still get a peaceful resolution.

This isn't even going to end the civil war in syria any time soon. now that asad as free foriegn troops in his country to stabilize his regime all it means is that more blood will be shed and the sectarian conflict will rage on.

On September 11 2013 06:51 sam!zdat wrote:
big corporations are just central planning without any democratic control. What is walmart if not a centrally planned economy? It's the repressed truth of capitalism that all large corporations are, internally, stalinist.

support yr local small businesses kids.

On September 11 2013 07:13 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

By the same logic small businesses are centrally planned economies too, just smaller ones.

I'm not sure what your point is, other than to attach negative connotations.

On September 11 2013 07:08 xDaunt wrote:

Every person who is not a democrat in the US who is unduly preoccupied with Obama "looking good" considers it a loss for Obama.

On September 11 2013 07:19 sam!zdat wrote:


that's just inane

the point is that you think that you live in a world that is fundamentally different from this 'planned economy' you fetishize as your hate object, but guess what, you don't, it is all around you and it is called corporate america.

I was at a bar in seattle the other day listening to two amazon employees talk about building communism (they did not use this word but I knew what they meant, even if they didn't). They were talking about computing probabilities of tomatos and such. They are going to plan the whole world with their skynet. Communism is coming, only it will be owned by jeff bezos. Does that make you feel about it?