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On January 03 2020 16:48 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 16:20 Mohdoo wrote:
I'm worried I'm gonna wake up to bad iran-related news.
Also re: introvert: if Trump killing the dude means less total deaths, I support it. If it means more total deaths, I am against it. How do you determine this without post-hoc shenanigans? To be fair the airstrike also killed the Hezbollah guy in charge who attacked the US Embassy. If I was the President I would have sent the marines in to defend the place, evacuate non-military personnel, then evac'd the marines, then told the backwards nations of the Middle East to pound sand and not waste any more $$$ or lives there, but attacking the guy who attacked you is not exactly a hard position to defend. Going after Trump on these grounds is by far and away a losing battle with the average person.
Force a country to the brink for decades, then complain about them provoking you and attacking you instead of rolling over and dying. What a convenient way of thinking.
Please note : I don't like Iran. But the way the administration has been dealing with them for decades is what brought this.
There are two terrorist states (mainly) in this area, the US is head over heels and doing the bidding of one of them, and against the other, because it rebelled against western influence in 79.
It's not self-defence, it's playing the victim after having looked for it, to save appearances publicly.
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Just realized this Iran ordeal is an amazing blessing for Castro. Basically zero talk of him dropping out with this going on. This is essentially him mumbling "smoke jutsu" and suddenly being gone.
Edit: imagine the fomo John bolton is feeling right now lmao
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Any talk of 'but the Iranians' falls on deaf ears to me when you consider the first move was made by America (Trump) stepping out of the nuclear deal that everyone, including the agency doing the inspections, agreed was going well.
This is a forced escalation of events that Trump started back in 2018.
Pretty sure a lot of people predicted a war with Iran to help Trump get re-elected back then.
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The nuclear deal was just a nuclear deal, right? It didn't cover supporting opposing groups in the Middle East and consequnces of that. I mean the team Iran vs team Saudi proxy war.
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On January 03 2020 19:51 Gorsameth wrote:
Any talk of 'but the Iranians' falls on deaf ears to me when you consider the first move was made by America (Trump) stepping out of the nuclear deal that everyone, including the agency doing the inspections, agreed was going well.
This is a forced escalation of events that Trump started back in 2018.
Pretty sure a lot of people predicted a war with Iran to help Trump get re-elected back then.
Trump predicted this himself.
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On January 03 2020 20:03 jrkirby wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 19:51 Gorsameth wrote:
Any talk of 'but the Iranians' falls on deaf ears to me when you consider the first move was made by America (Trump) stepping out of the nuclear deal that everyone, including the agency doing the inspections, agreed was going well.
This is a forced escalation of events that Trump started back in 2018.
Pretty sure a lot of people predicted a war with Iran to help Trump get re-elected back then. Trump predicted this himself.
The sort of thing that's going to be important to remember in the future while the media manufactures consent for this.
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Norway28598 Posts
On January 03 2020 14:04 Introvert wrote:
Good on Trump, tha US has been taking to hits for some time now but thankfully even with Trump it cant last forever. And of course we have the usual lefty reaction, which at this point is so reliable it just makes me laugh more than anything.
It makes you laugh that people are saddened or angry by the prospect of another (potentially worse) invasion of Iraq happening destroying the lives of millions of people?
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On January 03 2020 21:07 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 14:04 Introvert wrote:
Good on Trump, tha US has been taking to hits for some time now but thankfully even with Trump it cant last forever. And of course we have the usual lefty reaction, which at this point is so reliable it just makes me laugh more than anything. It makes you laugh that people are saddened or angry by the prospect of another (potentially worse) invasion of Iraq happening destroying the lives of millions of people?
They don't care, never have, since US citizens "benefit" (well, apart from fueling terrorism and hate attacks, but it feeds the rethoric that it's needed). It brings a lot of money to US companies as well when you need to rebuild ! Gotta assert dominance and send a message. Who cares about hoodlums ?
Pompeo is now saying that they want de-escalation. I wonder how the US would react if a covert ops US general was assassinated in a foreign country, by a third party ? Probably they would just say "fine, our mistake, thanks for the lesson"...
It is of course, very safe and unlikely to cause collateral damage, to bomb the fucking Baghdadi international airport. Jackasses. I feel like I'm seeing the carpet bombing in Normandy all over again, and not chirurgical prunings.
I am having trouble finding info on the bombing itself, apart the location and the medium. Anyone has a casualties number or details ? I found the iranian general, an iraki allies, and probably some militia. Was that it ?
Oh, somehow I guess that makes it even less likely that Bolton would somehow testify in an eventual impeachment trial, since he looks overjoyed right now !
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On January 03 2020 03:43 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 03:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It helps not to follow GH's misuse of "liberalism" simply becuase he does it. Also helps to stop seeing things in terms of "left" and "right". They are not useful terms. You are overly concerned with your side winning whatever it is that the goals to be attained are no longer the topic of discussion, just that you want the left, whatever that means to you to win. GH uses liberalism correctly, he must live in your head that you think I'm using the terms in the same way because of his influence and not because that's how literally any socialist ever would use "liberal". Good post otherwise, surprised to see you agree with me on this.
Case in point this post you write straight afterwards.On January 03 2020 03:34 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 03:27 Gorsameth wrote:On January 03 2020 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 01 2020 19:52 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Again I think politics is about what can be done, not about some grand vision of the Left or the Right.
I don't care that Obama is a liberal or a leftist deep down. He passed reforms that are part of a much more left wing vision of society, such as a universal health care, and that's what matters. We don't elect people to embody some kind of ideological purity, we elect them to change the life of people and budge the system in a certain direction. Obama did it towards the left, so in the US context, yes, he was a left wing president. And he would have gone much further had he not been constantly blocked by the GOP.
In that regard, considering that anyway the limit of his left leaning reform were exterior constraints and nor his will, it wouldn't have made a iota of difference if he had been much much more left wing leaning as a person, as he certainly wouldn't have accomplished anything else. What mattered was that he was good enough at his job to implement his reforms with all the constraints he had to face.
I suspect that same would have gone for Clinton and I sincerely doubt that Bernie or Clinton presidency would have had a much different outcome. Both of them would have had to battle insanely hard to pass a couple of key reforms in the spirit of Obamacare, and would have been stopped wayyyy short of their vision, be it a moderately social democratic centrism or Bernie socialist grand dream. What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do. The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it. I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things. His point is right tho, why does the specific leaning of a candidate matter when they policies move the country in the direction you want to go? If you want universal healthcare it doesn't matter if its a Liberal, Left wing or Conservative that ends up implementing it. What matters is that they have a plan to implement that you agree with. The closer to the goal you are the more the details start to matter but America is so far from socialism that any move in that direction, be it left wing or liberal is probably a good thing. The version of universal health care that is consistent with liberal principles is different from the version that is consistent with leftist principles. It's privatized and operated for profit. Even accounting for compromises that you'll have to make the end result of an healthcare plan that starts from a leftist principle and one that starts from a liberal principle are noticeably different, see for the US medicare and Obamacare. If you're fine either way then cool for you, but that's not the same as saying we have the same goals and different methods. And the general debate of leftwing vs liberal is not limited to what to do with healthcare, even though that's one of the more pressing issues in the US right now.
The NHS, the British healthcare institution is consistent with liberal principles. However it is not privatized and operated for profit. It is also consistent with leftist principles. Liberalism and left wing are not polar opposites but on different categories of politics, entwined though they may be. However it is not by your own personal definition of liberal principles. So what purpose does these using words in such a manner communicate? So by using your own personal definiiton of liberalism, the broad strokes that the politics of liberalism is swept under, just so that you can make a call to left wing politics. It is simply a call to tribalism.
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Even for american standarts, this murder is madness, I hope usa pays for this as should any nations, the damages they did in middle east/north africa are terribles and americans prove once again they are a scourge for peace.
The worst is its motivation is purely electoral, what a mess, Trump was at least more isolationnist than the democrats which was really good, he just screwed badly, it might be the great disaster of his mandate.
The worst is obviously for the iranians, now they risk seeing liberals and americans imposing the liberal democracy by murders and rapes while dealing with the religious fanatism of the mollahs.
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On January 03 2020 22:35 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 03:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It helps not to follow GH's misuse of "liberalism" simply becuase he does it. Also helps to stop seeing things in terms of "left" and "right". They are not useful terms. You are overly concerned with your side winning whatever it is that the goals to be attained are no longer the topic of discussion, just that you want the left, whatever that means to you to win. GH uses liberalism correctly, he must live in your head that you think I'm using the terms in the same way because of his influence and not because that's how literally any socialist ever would use "liberal". Good post otherwise, surprised to see you agree with me on this. Case in point this post you write straight afterwards. Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 03:34 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:27 Gorsameth wrote:On January 03 2020 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 01 2020 20:50 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
What you perceive as "what can be done" is influenced by the grand vision of the left and the right, and by the difference between liberalism and leftism. When your leftwing party runs to the center to be neoliberal and pushes the right further right so that it's now borderline fascist, what can be done is different than when you have a real leftist party on the left and a liberal party on the right. When you run as a leftist and then you staff your cabinet based 99% on what liberals want, the capacities and intentions of your cabinet will be different than that of a leftist cabinet. When you run as a leftist and then squander the good will that was given to you so much so that 1000 electoral seats turn to the opposing party, it influences what can be done by your administration outside of executive orders. It's also not just about you, as the political map that you leave behind will influence what the next representatives of the left can and cannot do.
The politics that you describe there are politics of capitulation. A politician can run on 95% of the right's platform, get elected, and that would be a victory for the left because the other politician was running on 100% of the right's platform. If you remove the ideas from the equation, there is no reason why those ideas would ever win. It would be bad political strategy for your ideas to win. That's not a good outlook. I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office. At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better. I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution. And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context. Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it. I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things. His point is right tho, why does the specific leaning of a candidate matter when they policies move the country in the direction you want to go? If you want universal healthcare it doesn't matter if its a Liberal, Left wing or Conservative that ends up implementing it. What matters is that they have a plan to implement that you agree with. The closer to the goal you are the more the details start to matter but America is so far from socialism that any move in that direction, be it left wing or liberal is probably a good thing. The version of universal health care that is consistent with liberal principles is different from the version that is consistent with leftist principles. It's privatized and operated for profit. Even accounting for compromises that you'll have to make the end result of an healthcare plan that starts from a leftist principle and one that starts from a liberal principle are noticeably different, see for the US medicare and Obamacare. If you're fine either way then cool for you, but that's not the same as saying we have the same goals and different methods. And the general debate of leftwing vs liberal is not limited to what to do with healthcare, even though that's one of the more pressing issues in the US right now. The NHS, the British healthcare institution is consistent with liberal principles. However it is not privatized and operated for profit. It is also consistent with leftist principles. Liberalism and left wing are not polar opposites but on different categories of politics, entwined though they may be. However it is not by your own personal definition of liberal principles. So what purpose does these using words in such a manner communicate? So by using your own personal definiiton of liberalism, the broad strokes that the politics of liberalism is swept under, just so that you can make a call to left wing politics. It is simply a call to tribalism.
The NHS is not consistent with liberal principles. It isn't operated privately and it isn't operated for profit. It can exist within capitalism but it's not itself a capitalist enterprise. It doesn't go much further than that really.
The purpose of using the words that way is what you said in the last post, which you seem to have forgotten now. If we just say "left" or "right", we only think about our side winning and we lose track of what the win looks like. I agree with you that this is a problem, and the simplest way to counter this is to refer to ideologies properly.
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On January 03 2020 22:38 stilt wrote:
Even for american standarts, this murder is madness, I hope usa pays for this as should any nations, the damages they did in middle east/north africa are terribles and americans prove once again they are a scourge for peace.
The worst is its motivation is purely electoral, what a mess, Trump was at least more isolationnist than the democrats which was really good, he just screwed badly, it might be the great disaster of his mandate.
The worst is obviously for the iranians, now they risk seeing liberals and americans imposing the liberal democracy by murders and rapes while dealing with the religious fanatism of the mollahs.
After Obama assassinated an American kid with a drone it became pretty clear there were no "better angels" to appeal to anymore. So then when Trump had commandos murder that kid's 8 year old little sister, no one even noticed.
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On January 03 2020 22:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 22:38 stilt wrote:
Even for american standarts, this murder is madness, I hope usa pays for this as should any nations, the damages they did in middle east/north africa are terribles and americans prove once again they are a scourge for peace.
The worst is its motivation is purely electoral, what a mess, Trump was at least more isolationnist than the democrats which was really good, he just screwed badly, it might be the great disaster of his mandate.
The worst is obviously for the iranians, now they risk seeing liberals and americans imposing the liberal democracy by murders and rapes while dealing with the religious fanatism of the mollahs. After Obama assassinated an American kid with a drone it became pretty clear there were no "better angels" to appeal to anymore. So then when Trump had commandos murder that kid's 8 year old little sister, no one even noticed. Everyone: Talk about Trump killing a foreign general
GH: Hey remember that time Obama killed a kid.
...
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On January 03 2020 23:01 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 22:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 03 2020 22:38 stilt wrote:
Even for american standarts, this murder is madness, I hope usa pays for this as should any nations, the damages they did in middle east/north africa are terribles and americans prove once again they are a scourge for peace.
The worst is its motivation is purely electoral, what a mess, Trump was at least more isolationnist than the democrats which was really good, he just screwed badly, it might be the great disaster of his mandate.
The worst is obviously for the iranians, now they risk seeing liberals and americans imposing the liberal democracy by murders and rapes while dealing with the religious fanatism of the mollahs. After Obama assassinated an American kid with a drone it became pretty clear there were no "better angels" to appeal to anymore. So then when Trump had commandos murder that kid's 8 year old little sister, no one even noticed. Everyone: Talk about Trump killing a foreign general GH: Hey remember that time Obama killed a kid. ...
stilt: "Even for american standarts, this murder is madness"
GH: Sorta?
I'm saying Trump had commandos kill an 8 year old girl and no one even noticed so it's mostly the strategic implications rather than moral ones that make this "madness"
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On January 03 2020 22:50 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 22:35 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On January 03 2020 03:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It helps not to follow GH's misuse of "liberalism" simply becuase he does it. Also helps to stop seeing things in terms of "left" and "right". They are not useful terms. You are overly concerned with your side winning whatever it is that the goals to be attained are no longer the topic of discussion, just that you want the left, whatever that means to you to win. GH uses liberalism correctly, he must live in your head that you think I'm using the terms in the same way because of his influence and not because that's how literally any socialist ever would use "liberal". Good post otherwise, surprised to see you agree with me on this. Case in point this post you write straight afterwards. On January 03 2020 03:34 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:27 Gorsameth wrote:On January 03 2020 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 01:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:
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I don't see what is a politics of capitulation. All I want from a politician is that he leaves the country in a better state than when he gets into office.
At that point, Obama, Bernie or fucking Karl Marx in the White House would basically not achieve anything much different from each other. They would all push as hard as possible to pass left leaning reforms, and pass a fraction of them in an imperfect way. Which is great. It changes people's lives for the better.
I don't believe in those grand political ideals and care not about pursuing some fantasies of political purity and childish dreams about The Revolution.
And if Obama was elected in Norway and wanted to push the country right (he probably would), I would oppose him. But he did a stellar job as POTUS, and I would support anyone like him in that context.
Since we are at it, i prefer someone who doesn't sell cheap dreams of revolution to get elected. If Bernie wins, he will probably end up being a good president, pushing the country a bit to the left just as Obama did by fighting like a demon, but his supporters will be super pissed off and disillusioned because The Revolution will not have delivered. And that's not a good thing. Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him? If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals. That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it. I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things. His point is right tho, why does the specific leaning of a candidate matter when they policies move the country in the direction you want to go? If you want universal healthcare it doesn't matter if its a Liberal, Left wing or Conservative that ends up implementing it. What matters is that they have a plan to implement that you agree with. The closer to the goal you are the more the details start to matter but America is so far from socialism that any move in that direction, be it left wing or liberal is probably a good thing. The version of universal health care that is consistent with liberal principles is different from the version that is consistent with leftist principles. It's privatized and operated for profit. Even accounting for compromises that you'll have to make the end result of an healthcare plan that starts from a leftist principle and one that starts from a liberal principle are noticeably different, see for the US medicare and Obamacare. If you're fine either way then cool for you, but that's not the same as saying we have the same goals and different methods. And the general debate of leftwing vs liberal is not limited to what to do with healthcare, even though that's one of the more pressing issues in the US right now. The NHS, the British healthcare institution is consistent with liberal principles. However it is not privatized and operated for profit. It is also consistent with leftist principles. Liberalism and left wing are not polar opposites but on different categories of politics, entwined though they may be. However it is not by your own personal definition of liberal principles. So what purpose does these using words in such a manner communicate? So by using your own personal definiiton of liberalism, the broad strokes that the politics of liberalism is swept under, just so that you can make a call to left wing politics. It is simply a call to tribalism. The NHS is not consistent with liberal principles. It isn't operated privately and it isn't operated for profit. It can exist within capitalism but it's not itself a capitalist enterprise. It doesn't go much further than that really. The purpose of using the words that way is what you said in the last post, which you seem to have forgotten now. If we just say "left" or "right", we only think about our side winning and we lose track of what the win looks like. I agree with you that this is a problem, and the simplest way to counter this is to refer to ideologies properly.
That's exactly the point I am saying. The foundation of the NHS is liberalism. It certainly isn't communism and it certainly isn't conservatism either. It has its roots in the idealogy of liberalism, just not by your personal and narrow viewpoint of what you call liberalism. You've just twisted the meaning of liberalism. liberalism is an adealogy that found itself in both what you may boradly call the left or the right and it does you no favours to attribut liberalism to simply not being what you call not the left.
Edit: I edited this to be slightly less aggressive but it was read and replied later so whatever.
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On January 03 2020 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 22:50 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 22:35 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On January 03 2020 03:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It helps not to follow GH's misuse of "liberalism" simply becuase he does it. Also helps to stop seeing things in terms of "left" and "right". They are not useful terms. You are overly concerned with your side winning whatever it is that the goals to be attained are no longer the topic of discussion, just that you want the left, whatever that means to you to win. GH uses liberalism correctly, he must live in your head that you think I'm using the terms in the same way because of his influence and not because that's how literally any socialist ever would use "liberal". Good post otherwise, surprised to see you agree with me on this. Case in point this post you write straight afterwards. On January 03 2020 03:34 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 03:27 Gorsameth wrote:On January 03 2020 03:20 Nebuchad wrote:On January 03 2020 02:46 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 20:42 Nebuchad wrote:On January 02 2020 18:53 Biff The Understudy wrote:On January 02 2020 02:09 Nebuchad wrote:
[quote]
Obama is a contradictory figure in the framing that you give. He fights like a demon to get more leftwing stuff, he's doing basically the same as Bernie could, but if he was in Norway in another context, then he would push the country to the right and you'd fight against him?
If he wouldn't do everything he can when the deck is on his side, why would you assume that he's doing everything he can when the deck is stacked against him? Logically, he wouldn't. That's an issue, and that's why your framing of "purity" is factually wrong. Liberalism isn't impure leftism, it's a different ideology with different goals.
That's also where the capitulation comes in: we have a vision for society in the background, and we're giving up this vision because of pragmatism. But as we're giving up on our ideals being implemented, what's considered pragmatic changes, since less people are fighting on one side of the aisle and therefore the compromise position is no longer in the same place as it was when it comes to ideologies: it drifts to the right. And suddenly we don't care whether our champion is advancing liberalism or leftism, as long as we can tell ourselves they're improving the world. If we follow this logic we can even accept a quasi-conservative liberal like Biden as being good for the left, so long as the alternative candidate would have been worse. This pragmatic vision that is devoid of ideology is the kind of thought process that explains why the left keeps losing and the far right keeps strengthening, regardless of whether the nominally leftist candidate is in power or not. American society is so far on the right that in the realm of the possible right now, liberals and leftists want exactly the same thing. The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that) but both liberals and leftists basically want the US to look a little bit more like Denmark. Now we can debate whether or not we want a narrative to keep people fired up for elections about how we want to change the world radically. If you have good memory, that's what got Obama elected the first time (he was a bit the Bernie of 2008) and that costed him hugely when people realized he was only ever going to manage a universal healthcare, a cleanup of lobbyists in Washington, a comprehensive financial reform we could only dream of in the EU and a few other things instead of the socialist paradise they believed he would bring. I don't care about that. If you want to talk about great ideals and political theory that never see the light of the day, that's fine. I want poor people who get cancer to be treated instead of dying at home with no help because they don't have an insurance. See, I believe that's what matters. When it comes to Norway, what I meant is that the context, and therefore the range of possibilities is totally different. Instead of being wayyyyyy right of what american liberals want, the country is further on the left than them. Suddenly being liberal and left wing are two totally different things and the result of both in office will be different. Just as Macron would be a left wing wet dream in the US although in France he is centre right, Obama would be somewhere in the centre in Norway. Again. It's a question of context. America is this place that is simultaneously so far to the right that leftists and liberals are undistinguishable, but also where a liberal thinks running as a leftist is a good strategy to get elected since Obama is the Bernie of 2008. This America that you picture, it doesn't really make sense. If it was truly where the country was at, progressives would be running as liberals, not liberals as progressives. Basically everyone runs to the left of where they end up truly being, recent examples being Obama, Beto, Gillum, and even Trump. If you were there in 2016, I remember having arguments where people were telling me that Hillary Clinton was super progressive and that it was unfair that she was portrayed differently since her policies were competing with those of Bernie in terms of progressiveness. "The end goal might not be the exact same (even though I'm not even sure about that)" This sentence is the true issue imo. Of course the end goal is not the same. The ideal society of liberalism looks nothing like the ideal society of any leftist ideology. Liberalism wants a meritocracy, so that the people who deserve it/are the most capable get on top of society. Leftist ideologies fight against social hierarchies on a more fundamental level. This notion of top of society to get onto should be eroded. What you perceive as anti-leftist sentiment in the US is in part antiliberal sentiment. It's not only that, of course, there's also a reaction against socialism that forces people to call themselves other stuff like "progressive", I understand that. But a cliche of american politics is talking about liberal elites and how they misunderstand and are disconnected from the people. That is a leftist framing, that's populism. It might not be willing to call itself leftwing, and I have no doubt that racism and bigotry will play enough of a part that a bunch of the people who talk about liberal elites will still vote for a liberal elite like Trump over Bernie, but still this sort of framing should be accounted for. Macron would be Bill Clinton in the US. He's already happened. Look we can keep bickering, it goes nowhere. I want people to get a healthcare, affordable education and stuff like that, which are stuff both liberals and leftists are gonna try to achieve and neither are gonna fully succeed. So I don't care whatsoever if the guy who will give those to the people has a blue or a pink t-shirt. That's it. I mean I questioned some of your fundamental assumptions about the US and whether liberalism and leftism have the same political goals, glad to know that we were just bickering to you. Shrug, and see you next time you'll say the same things. His point is right tho, why does the specific leaning of a candidate matter when they policies move the country in the direction you want to go? If you want universal healthcare it doesn't matter if its a Liberal, Left wing or Conservative that ends up implementing it. What matters is that they have a plan to implement that you agree with. The closer to the goal you are the more the details start to matter but America is so far from socialism that any move in that direction, be it left wing or liberal is probably a good thing. The version of universal health care that is consistent with liberal principles is different from the version that is consistent with leftist principles. It's privatized and operated for profit. Even accounting for compromises that you'll have to make the end result of an healthcare plan that starts from a leftist principle and one that starts from a liberal principle are noticeably different, see for the US medicare and Obamacare. If you're fine either way then cool for you, but that's not the same as saying we have the same goals and different methods. And the general debate of leftwing vs liberal is not limited to what to do with healthcare, even though that's one of the more pressing issues in the US right now. The NHS, the British healthcare institution is consistent with liberal principles. However it is not privatized and operated for profit. It is also consistent with leftist principles. Liberalism and left wing are not polar opposites but on different categories of politics, entwined though they may be. However it is not by your own personal definition of liberal principles. So what purpose does these using words in such a manner communicate? So by using your own personal definiiton of liberalism, the broad strokes that the politics of liberalism is swept under, just so that you can make a call to left wing politics. It is simply a call to tribalism. The NHS is not consistent with liberal principles. It isn't operated privately and it isn't operated for profit. It can exist within capitalism but it's not itself a capitalist enterprise. It doesn't go much further than that really. The purpose of using the words that way is what you said in the last post, which you seem to have forgotten now. If we just say "left" or "right", we only think about our side winning and we lose track of what the win looks like. I agree with you that this is a problem, and the simplest way to counter this is to refer to ideologies properly. That's exactly the point I am saying. The foundation of the NHS is liberalism. It certainly isn't communism and it certainly isn't conservatism either. It has its roots in the idealogy of liberalism, just not by your personal and narrow viewpoint of what you call liberalism. You've just twisted the meaning of liberalism to suit whatever poltical agenda you want, and so there is no communication.
The foundation of the NHS is socialism.
The process of making it so that the NHS is no longer the NHS is literally called "liberalization". Any insight on why that is, is it because of my personal and narrow viewpoint?
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Ever heard of social liberalism? Liberalism is a broad church. Stop taking such narrow viewpoint of liberalism.
Edit: Also the conservative party's attempt to destroy the NHS isn't called liberalism, no-one calls it that, it's referred to as privatisation.
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When all else fails, liberalism is best understood with reference to individualism imo.
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On January 03 2020 23:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 23:01 Gorsameth wrote:On January 03 2020 22:59 GreenHorizons wrote:On January 03 2020 22:38 stilt wrote:
Even for american standarts, this murder is madness, I hope usa pays for this as should any nations, the damages they did in middle east/north africa are terribles and americans prove once again they are a scourge for peace.
The worst is its motivation is purely electoral, what a mess, Trump was at least more isolationnist than the democrats which was really good, he just screwed badly, it might be the great disaster of his mandate.
The worst is obviously for the iranians, now they risk seeing liberals and americans imposing the liberal democracy by murders and rapes while dealing with the religious fanatism of the mollahs. After Obama assassinated an American kid with a drone it became pretty clear there were no "better angels" to appeal to anymore. So then when Trump had commandos murder that kid's 8 year old little sister, no one even noticed. Everyone: Talk about Trump killing a foreign general GH: Hey remember that time Obama killed a kid. ... stilt: "Even for american standarts, this murder is madness" GH: Sorta? I'm saying Trump had commandos kill an 8 year old girl and no one even noticed so it's mostly the strategic implications rather than moral ones that make this "madness"
non-governmental actors vs state general of a country recognized by all laws and conventions while not being at war ? You don't see any difference ?
The two children were bystanders from the looks of it. They "happened" to be US citizens, which I don't give a damn about. Children from any nationalities should have the same rights, US citizens don't have holy rights granted by god and are not above the others, so if you selectively mention one or two, at least make a footnote about the others.
According to statistical analyses provided by Reprieve, 9 children have been killed for every targeted adult the United States has tried to assassinate, and, in numerous failed attempts to kill Ayman al-Zawahri, the CIA has killed 76 children and 29 adult bystanders.
Obama didn't "kill a kid, and no one noticed", administrations have done it constantly, and collateral damage is conveniently omitted each time. This one is different and dangerous.
I can understand killing terrorist leaders, if done cleanly (yes it's fucking hard). This however, was clearly a crime against a sovereign nation in the legal sense.
And the madness referred to is about the implications of it, not the legality. You were already at war with Al-Qaeda. You were not, officially, with Iran. The consequences could be enormous.
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On January 03 2020 23:14 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Ever heard of social liberalism? Liberalism is a broad church. Stop taking such narrow viewpoint of liberalism.
Was the NHS created by social liberals or was it created by socialists? There are answers to these questions, it's not dependant on viewpoints.
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EPT
