lol imperialist-adjacent. the propagandists called themselves anti-imperialist because the west was imperialist, and if soviet union is nothing if not anti-west. their intentions and methods were just as much imperialist. they invaded and occupied territories for decades. they assassinated leaders and installed puppet governments. they divided their areas of influence with other imperialists. they exploited puppet regimes for military and economic goals. i don’t think there’s a single year in russia’s existence that its officials did not refer to Russia past or present as a great empire. that’s not adjacent, it is what it is.
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I think you misread my post. I didn’t say anyone should be silent. I said that people interested in promoting a political cause through winning elections should be on board with crafting a winning message.
AOC knows her platform doesn’t play everywhere, but she’s great with messaging and literally offering to help candidates across the map. She’s exactly the kind of person I’m talking about.
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Results oriented, if there had been a 9/11 under Trump, Muslim internment camps at home and nukes in Middle East are on the table.
If you want to be non-results oriented, it would be to give Trump “credit” because the fact that the above is not a joke may have actually deterred terrorist attacks.
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What actual evidence do you have that Trump is more likely to use nukes than Bush was?
I know this isn’t a popular thing to say, but it does seem like Trump is the most anti-war president since…I honestly am having trouble finding a stopping point.
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While I agree he was anti war we shouldn’t confuse it as some kind of moral or policy stance. It just so happens a war didn’t serve his personal interests. Had it, he would have nuked billions without losing a seconds sleep.
Well, just straight up assassinating Solemani for political gain, without really giving a shit about the likelihood it would lead to war, doesn’t do a lot for his anti-war credentials.
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Well, Trump did actually say, “What’s the point of nukes if you don’t use them?” I think that alone makes him more likely.
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Plus him dramatically escalating drone strikes (w/ zero press coverage because of his domestic chaos and it being in character for him). Anti-war my ass. His regard for human life is zero. He just thinks it’s stupid to send US troops in on the ground to do the killing.
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Was he talking about another country at the time or a weather system?
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I would say he thinks its stupid to do that without being properly compensated. He doesn’t actually value US soldier lives, but he thinks of them as his property to be traded for something. If someone offered him $1 billion to sacrifice 10 soldiers he wouldn’t give it a 2nd thought. That’s a good deal!
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I think the more accurate way to look at this is usually that radicals, or the visibility of radical ideas, are the harbingers of the Overton window shifting on something. For example you’ve told me repeatedly that police abolitionism has a long history in the US, so is it really the case that this sort of activist thinking is driving change, or is it that out of control law enforcement is a mainstream issue now and so more attention is directed to these ideas? Is there really a direct line from Stonewall to gay rights or does the general cultural environment of the breakdown of sexual moralising have something to do with it?
One obvious example where there was activism, then mainstream acceptance of an idea, but the two were completely disconnected, is attitudes to free trade agreements. There have been anti-globalization protests on the left since the mid 90s, and now anti-globalization is a mainstream idea on the right. But there’s not really any case to be made that these two things are connected. It was different groups coming to the same idea at different times and for somewhat similar, but distinct, reasons. It’s more or less definitionally true that if any outside-the-mainstream political idea becomes mainstream, there will be some group of radicals who were there first. That doesn’t make it a fait accompli that there’s a strong causal relationship there.
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Guys, Trump floated the idea of nuking a hurricane. He wasn’t anti war. He is just dumb and has the attention span of a small child.
Trump wasn’t anti war, his difference was in that he aligned himself with countries that are not allied to the USA. He liked the dictators and strongman. Who knows what 4 more years of those relationships would bring.
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His rollback of environment regulations and polices could kill a lot of people. But that would probably of happened no matter what rep pres you plugged in.
Bolton said trump wanted to invade Venezuela and it would be cool but was held back. We also have some blood on our hands in places like Yemen and expanded drone wars.
The idea he is some kind of principled anti war guy is off.
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Yep. And we’ll probably have more thanks to the 23B worth of arms we’re selling to the UAE as a nice thank you gift for their peace agreement with Israel.
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Trump is like an abusive step-father that moves in after your Dad dies and ends up owning all of your dad’s guns. And while he abuses you and your mom, he never picks up a gun. He drunkenly admires them, he brags about them, he says weird things like “Why own so many guns if you never use them?”, but he never actually shoots one.
When he’s finally arrested for domestic abuse and is dragged out, it’s possible that one could argue: “You know, based on his actions, he was actually a lot more anti-gun-use than your bio-dad was.” It might even be true. It doesn’t mean you’re not happy as fuck to get him out and away from all of them.
I hope you enjoyed tonight’s presentation of Tortured Metaphor Theater!
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Obama has all the answers…
temperamentally I am sympathetic to a certain strain of conservatism in the sense that I’m not just a materialist. I’m not an economic determinist. I think it’s important, but I think there are things other than stuff and money and income – the religious critique of modern society, that we’ve lost that sense of community.
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Obama the master of using many words to really say absolutely nothing of consequence.
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“I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion,” he said. “It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration, but democracy generally.
He’s been hanging out with Susan Collins while on Richard Branson’s private island, it seems.
He easily could have bombed Iran after they shot down our recon drone. I’m sure Clinton or Biden would have, although they might never have been in that situation since they wouldn’t have backed out of the Iran deal in the first place.