US Politics Mega-thread - Page 750

On December 29 2013 08:31 sam!zdat wrote:
ah yes, the techno messiah who will come solve all our problems. Let us pray

On December 29 2013 08:39 Nyxisto wrote:
This discussion is also pretty irrelevant as the the world doesn't revolve around Europe and the US. Billions of people in India and China and the other threshold countries are to occupied keeping their families alive instead of caring about the future of the planet.

On December 29 2013 08:39 Nyxisto wrote:
The super evil growth capitalism is the only way for these countries to get their living conditions up. (as it was for us)

On December 29 2013 08:39 Nyxisto wrote:
This discussion is also pretty irrelevant as the the world doesn't revolve around Europe and the US. Billions of people in India and China and the other threshold countries are to occupied keeping their families alive instead of caring about the future of the planet. The super evil growth capitalism is the only way for these countries to get their living conditions up. (as it was for us)

On December 29 2013 09:10 IgnE wrote:


Discussion is highly relevant. South and east Asians live on this planet too. Your mind just appears to be incapable of imagining an alternative to the constant growth paradigm. It is easier to imagine apocalypse than the end of capitalism. Perhaps the crowning triumph of liberal ideology.

On December 29 2013 09:14 xDaunt wrote:

Feel free to describe such an alternative. The historical examples of the 20th century didn't work so well.

On December 29 2013 09:17 IgnE wrote:


Thank you for providing yourself as the quintessential example.

On December 29 2013 09:10 IgnE wrote:


Discussion is highly relevant. South and east Asians live on this planet too. Your mind just appears to be incapable of imagining an alternative to the constant growth paradigm. It is easier to imagine apocalypse than the end of capitalism. Perhaps the crowning triumph of liberal ideology.

On December 29 2013 09:28 Nyxisto wrote:


The majority of people on this planet live in countries and under circumstances that rely on growth and some kind of free market economy. And what has anything of that to do with ideology? Is North-Korea better off than the South? Was East-Germany better off than West-Germany? Was the Soviet Union doing better than the USA? I don't know in what kind of Bizzaro World you're living

On December 29 2013 09:54 sam!zdat wrote:
xdaunt since you're so smart why don't you fucking help us, you asshole. We don't know the answer and we're scared as fuck, you're just a smug jerk who's got his and wants to keep it, fuck everyone else and fuck the future. Well fuck you

On December 29 2013 10:11 xDaunt wrote:

You are much more fun when you're high (or I dunno, maybe you were sober previously).

As to your point, you wouldn't accept my help anyway. You'd categorically label whatever I had to offer as being reactionary, which isn't what you are after. I'm not looking to tear down the system. I want to help people thrive within the system.

On December 29 2013 10:15 hypercube wrote:


Sorry to barge into the conversation but why? A more reasonable approach would be to examine if it is possible for a large majority to thrive within the current system. Maybe it's not.

Benghazi, Libya

A boyish-looking American diplomat was meeting for the first time with the Islamist leaders of eastern Libya’s most formidable militias.

It was Sept. 9, 2012. Gathered on folding chairs in a banquet hall by the Mediterranean, the Libyans warned of rising threats against Americans from extremists in Benghazi. One militia leader, with a long beard and mismatched military fatigues, mentioned time in exile in Afghanistan. An American guard discreetly touched his gun.

“Since Benghazi isn’t safe, it is better for you to leave now,” Mohamed al-Gharabi, the leader of the Rafallah al-Sehati Brigade, later recalled telling the Americans. “I specifically told the Americans myself that we hoped that they would leave Benghazi as soon as possible.”

Yet as the militiamen snacked on Twinkie-style cakes with their American guests, they also gushed about their gratitude for President Obama’s support in their uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. They emphasized that they wanted to build a partnership with the United States, especially in the form of more investment. They specifically asked for Benghazi outlets of McDonald’s and KFC.

But much of the debate about Benghazi in Washington has revolved around statements made four days later in television interviews by Ms. Rice, who was then ambassador to the United Nations.

“What happened in Benghazi was in fact initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” “almost a copycat of the demonstrations against our facility in Cairo, prompted by the video.”

Republicans, pouncing on the misstatement, have argued that the Obama administration was trying to cover up Al Qaeda’s role. “It was very clear to the individuals on the ground that this was an Al Qaeda-led event,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said last month on Fox News.

“This was a preplanned, organized terrorist event,” he said, “not a video. That whole part was debunked time and time again.”

But the Republican arguments appear to conflate purely local extremist organizations like Ansar al-Shariah with Al Qaeda’s international terrorist network. The only intelligence connecting Al Qaeda to the attack was an intercepted phone call that night from a participant in the first wave of the attack to a friend in another African country who had ties to members of Al Qaeda, according to several officials briefed on the call. But when the friend heard the attacker’s boasts, he sounded astonished, the officials said, suggesting he had no prior knowledge of the assault.

Al Qaeda was having its own problems penetrating the Libyan chaos. Three weeks after the attack, on Oct. 3, 2012, leaders of the group’s regional affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, sent a letter to a lieutenant about efforts to crack the new territory. The leaders said they had sent four teams to try to establish footholds in Libya. But of the four, only two in the southern Sahara “were able to enter Libyan territory and lay the first practical bricks there,” the letter said.

On December 29 2013 10:22 xDaunt wrote:

So what is the alternative? It is not practical for people to wait around for the Marxist Jesus Christ to save us all from capitalism.