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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
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freetgy
1720 Posts
if he can manage it without a war, well played. Think of it the other way. If this doesn't lead to an solution you are going to strike anyway. If it does however, you have saved your country of another unnecessary war. in the end the results matters. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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 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. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
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). Politically, deregulation is a very loaded term. The state can, and has, broken up public companies only to saddle the sales with a host of regulation. You can buy this, but can only do business with these people, and we're going to regulate the prices and any kind of agreements you enter into. You need look no farther than the deregulation of Gray Davis with California's electricity crisis (though I'm sure Jonny has more examples of deregulation that would make neo-classicals cringe). I support the privatization of as many state industries (along with the dissolution of many state departments). I want a scrapping of the regulations that put undue burden on companies, well in excess of legitimate cleanliness, work conditions, and fraud regulations. Deregulation in practice has a tendency to be far different than the free-market crowd would support. I agree that sometimes there's an excessive belief in the market as the solver of problems. It's really just in contrast to a centrally-planned economy that free markets allow a faster and less costly solution to economic crises than otherwise would be possible. If you think the problem is really bad, just wait for the state's solution to the problem! | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
support yr local small businesses kids. | ||
KwarK
United States43674 Posts
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. America is weaker abroad at the moment than it was this time ten years ago. Her people and her allies are increasingly war weary. | ||
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Kiarip
United States1835 Posts
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. You're making it sound like we're still in the middle of cold war. | ||
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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farvacola
United States18855 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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. I agree wholeheartedly. I also am not in favor of intervening in Syria, because I don't believe that there is a good outcome for the US that will justify in the intervention. However, America is still powerful enough globally to leverage conflicts like these for its benefit, even without threats of force. If Obama had no intention of trying something like this and didn't want to get involved, he should have just said publicly a year ago that Syria isn't our problem instead of giving that "red line" speech. The point is that Obama has fucked up on a whole bunch of levels with his management of the situation. Calling this a "win" for Obama or otherwise saying that his actions have been "well played" is simply stupid and shortsighted. It completely misses the larger geopolitical ramifications. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On September 11 2013 07:01 sam!zdat wrote: we are! Exactly. Russia is our geopolitical adversary. So is China. So is Iran. Pretending otherwise is naïve. This doesn't mean that we need to be outright hostile to these countries. It simply means that we are competing over the same spheres of influence. | ||
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farvacola
United States18855 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On September 11 2013 07:06 farvacola wrote: Calling it a win for Obama is just as stupid as calling it a loss. Every person who is not a democrat in the US who is unduly preoccupied with Obama "looking good" considers it a loss for Obama. | ||
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Sermokala
United States14104 Posts
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. | ||
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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. Bingo. Go back and read the news stories about the administration's statements over the past month. How many conflicting statements have there been about whether force would be used, how much force would be used, etc? The answer is a lot. Oh, and don't even get me started on Obama intentionally leaking our attack plans to test public opinion. What an imbecile. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
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. 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. | ||
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farvacola
United States18855 Posts
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. And every single person who thinks Fox News is a legitimate news source agrees with you. Funny how that sort of absolutism works out. "If you're not with us, you're against us." is played out. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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sam!zdat
United States5559 Posts
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. 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? | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
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. No this is a win. Like you said, he has made himself look like kind of an idiot with all his "red line" talk and his goal for escalation of conflict. He was prepared to go into a massively unpopular war, which would have been terrible for him. This gives him a way out and defuses the situation. Even if it makes him look a bit silly, this is the best possible outcome he could have had. | ||
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JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
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? Your point that an organization, internally, acts as a non market economy is accurate. I don't think I said otherwise. You made an additional point that, therefore, we should support small businesses, which I counterpointed that small businesses are just smaller versions of big businesses. | ||
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