The author of that piece is a rabbi. Jews talk about Jewish identity like kind of a lot. That's A Thing. There's nothing offensive about that question in the way he's coming at it.
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This "I'm a progressive but if Hillary is the nominee, I'm not voting" shit is stale
- Thread starter PlayALLtheGames
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The author of that piece is a rabbi. Jews talk about Jewish identity like kind of a lot. That's A Thing. There's nothing offensive about that question in the way he's coming at it.
I'm American, so my understanding of British politics is probably faulty, but aren't Conservative effords to defund social welfare programs a huge crisis? Bill Clinton, a progressive politician, did that in the '90s and Democrats hardly batted an eye.
I think you're the one lacking much understanding. Hillary would absolutely belong in the Conservative party.
The Britain the Tories want looks a lot like the America the Democrats want. They're just pushing for it from different angles.
Euro posters talk about how everyone in the US political spectrum would be conservatives, and then we smash cut to "UK government cutting benefits to give the rich tax breaks" and wonder how this is possible if everyone is so much further left than us.
You'll excuse my reaction I'm still not used to religion being part of the political landscape.
I mean my country moved to secularism (with fucking huge pains) in 1905 or something so it's really not something I'm used to.
vainglorious
Member
Sexism has always been a consistent problem with Hillary and her campaigns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/em-an...tweets-about-hillarys-campaign_b_7063146.html
I remember during the Benghazi hearing in the first half hour alone there were over 400 sexist tweets about Hillary Clinton.
Search #WhyImNotVotingForHillary and every other tweet is some dumb sexist comment.
This shit really bothers me, and even my fiance who's as blue as the next democrat says some really dumb sexist shit that I have to confront him on. He's a huge Bernie supporter and after Bernie's losses this past Tuesday he was pretty upset. Which was fine. But then when folks on CNN made comments like, "Look at Hillary's impressive lead" he started calling her a bitch and I looked at him and had a really frank and blunt conversation about why he felt that need to call her bitch and he really couldn't give me a straight answer. I know this is anecdotal but subconscious sexism does exist.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/em-an...tweets-about-hillarys-campaign_b_7063146.html
I remember during the Benghazi hearing in the first half hour alone there were over 400 sexist tweets about Hillary Clinton.
Search #WhyImNotVotingForHillary and every other tweet is some dumb sexist comment.
This shit really bothers me, and even my fiance who's as blue as the next democrat says some really dumb sexist shit that I have to confront him on. He's a huge Bernie supporter and after Bernie's losses this past Tuesday he was pretty upset. Which was fine. But then when folks on CNN made comments like, "Look at Hillary's impressive lead" he started calling her a bitch and I looked at him and had a really frank and blunt conversation about why he felt that need to call her bitch and he really couldn't give me a straight answer. I know this is anecdotal but subconscious sexism does exist.
I'm not really a big Bernie or Clinton supporter but when I think how disappointing Obamas been on the big banks I was encouraged by Bernies speeches on taking them on. I feel like Clinton will just continue his policies and the American people will get tired of democrats just like how republicans are tired of their own politicians and revolting on the establishment.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Bad source. Not just the Washington Times (moonie rag), but that they're using ACU scores. The ACU is an interest group to advance conservative policy positions. Their MO is to cast probable nominees for the Democratic party as far-left to give cover to conservatives to seem like moderates. They have an incentive to place Clinton left of Sanders, in fact, as the article you link notes that Clinton is practically Sanders. You also see the implication later on: “The more one learns about her distortions, Clinton will most likely govern as a liberal president even more liberal than Obama, which would be disastrous for our nation,” Mr. Schlapp said. The idea that the descriptive component of this sentence is not rigged to support the normative component of the sentence is highly unlikely.
It is not the tendency of those in the social sciences to use interest group scores for this reason, unless the object of study is a particular policy area (i.e. using Sierra Club scores for environmental policy). The other issue is that it is impossible to compare interest group scores across sessions of congress and there is very little inter-year reliability.
The correct way to evaluate candidate liberalism is through either Bonica donor scores or DW-NOMINATE first-dimension ideological scores or both. 538 I believe uses a model that combines the Bonica, NOMINATE, and some sort of qualitative analysis of on-the-record position statements--not sure if anyone has tested that for reliability.
Clinton and Obama were comparably liberal in the Senate. Using DW-NOMINATE first-dimension scores for the 109th congress (to catch them when they're overlapping, although the scores can compare across sessions), Obama is a -0.344 and Clinton -0.368 ("slightly" more liberal, but 0.02 is within margin of error). Both would be around the 12th-15th most liberal senators at the time, both comparably liberal to their state-mate (Schumer, Durbin, Obama, and Clinton would all be within the margin of error to each other). Of course this tells us very little in an era where most Senate votes are either near-unanimous or along party lines, so we wouldn't really expect to be able to extract much meaning there.
Iron Man Cooking a Crepe
Banned
This is why Republicans crush Democrats. You can have 60 Dems in the Senate and won't shit get done because 10-15 dems will vote on the other side and be weirdos, meanwhile Republicans stay in lockstep because the grander scale matters more than your petty issue with this one thing or person.
Religion is unfortunately a huge part of politics. The fact that Clinton is Christian while Sanders is not likely helped her with many voters. Islam is so feared in America that "he's a Muslim" was considered even a damning stain against Obama than "he's black", even though there was absolutely no reason to think Obama was not Christian.
Just 50 years ago, many American Protestants were furious that an idolatrous Catholic now occupied the White House.
Part of the point of that piece is that a lot of Jews have also moved to a kind of secularism, too. If we're going to get excited about headlines we should at least read the conclusion:
But if Sanders wants to call that religious, he’s got a long progressive-Jewish lineage to back him up. When he says he “believes in God in [his] own ways,” he’s not speaking as a quirky, uncombed Socialist from Vermont. However unelectable it may make him, he’s speaking as part of a century-plus tradition of progressive secular Jews who changed the face of America.
The author's being sympathetic to Bernie and putting him in a wider cultural context, not trying to marginalize him.
I liked this line, as well:
I remember a teacher of mine, an Orthodox rabbi, telling me that “To be a good Jew, you need to believe in one God, or fewer.”
Thanks
shoplifter
Member
Personally, I'd use 'bitch' in the same context as I'd call someone a 'dickhead'. I wouldn't call a guy a bitch, just like I wouldn't call a woman a dickhead. In and of itself, it doesn't imply sexism. It's an artifact of gendered language constructs. Maybe we can just adopt 'asshole' across the spectrum.
Cybrwzrd
Banned
Prioritizing policies that protect the key members of the coalition is a rather short sighted way of governing. Democracy is a shitty system because of that. Essentially you want the party to run as if there were two wolves and a sheep voting on whats for dinner. Do you really want Democrats to act like that? No wonder we can't come together. The centrists are far to quick at demonizing those of us that don't completely agree with you.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
funny to see people with rainbow avatars refusing to vote for hillary over trump. good luck have fun if trump becomes potus
This is eerily similar to the 2000 election, when liberals were making the same arguments against Al Gore. Neither he nor Hillary are my ideal candidates, to be sure, but this isn't some academic exercise. These elections have real consequences for millions of peoplenot just in our country, but around the worldas evidenced by eight years of George W. Bush. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good (or even highly mediocre). There would be profound, genuine suffering under a President Trump, and if you truly have empathy for your fellow Americans, you'll do what you can to prevent that from coming to fruition.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I am late to the party, but I just want to applaud this amazing post.
Not really. It's just politics.
Yup. I remember shaking my head at those Bush supporters back in the day, and they kept saying "what's the worst that could really happen"? Well, now think on the fact that Bush was actually, by today's standards, a moderate.
Yeah. Moderate Republicans give you trillion-dollar wars. Oops?
I think the basic difference is that left-voters hatred for Rs simply isn't as strong as right-voters hatred for Ds, there's more built-in motivation on the right side, but it all comes from a negative place, aside from the structural advantages the right has with people of means and people with more free time on their hands, making their base turnout higher.
Glass Shark
Banned
Sometimes Bernie's fans can seem just as crazy as Trump's. Maybe they're meant for each other.
(I'd be more than happy to vote for either Bernie or Hillary in the general election.)
(I'd be more than happy to vote for either Bernie or Hillary in the general election.)
Box of Kittens
Banned
A person's vote is their own and no one else's. A candidate must earn it, and that goes for Bernie Sanders too. In the unlikely event he were to get the nomination, he wouldn't be entitled to the votes of Clinton supporters. That having said, there's nothing wrong with trying to persuade people to support a particular candidate, whether that be by extolling the virtues of the candidate, or warning of the consequences of electing the opponent. Too often I think people conflate the two and treat a legitimate attempt to persuade people to vote for a candidate as claiming that candidate is entitled to votes.
I'm not much of a fan of the tone of the OP, but I understand that it's coming from a place of frustration from reading some of the same things over and over that are themselves written in a nasty tone. I don't really think it's helpful in terms of persuading anybody, but I can understand where that frustration comes from. The same thing goes for angry posts from Sanders supporters.
The reality is that a contested primary like this can get awfully heated and people on each side will say things they really shouldn't. It certainly happened in 2008. I'm personally hoping both sides will come together like they did in '08 (outside some vocal die-hards) because I think a Trump presidency would be a disaster.
I'm not much of a fan of the tone of the OP, but I understand that it's coming from a place of frustration from reading some of the same things over and over that are themselves written in a nasty tone. I don't really think it's helpful in terms of persuading anybody, but I can understand where that frustration comes from. The same thing goes for angry posts from Sanders supporters.
The reality is that a contested primary like this can get awfully heated and people on each side will say things they really shouldn't. It certainly happened in 2008. I'm personally hoping both sides will come together like they did in '08 (outside some vocal die-hards) because I think a Trump presidency would be a disaster.
they likely don't want to contribute to whom they believe to be a less-than-ideal candidate, especially when the vote would amount to nothing
A Link to the Past
Banned
Seriously, that first part really resonates - the idea that people are upset because they have to settle makes them seem like they're going into special snowflake territory.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
The Nader shitting is disappointing- Al Gore Lost his own state. Think about that. Had he won that, he had won the election. Had he led Bill Clinton campaign for him he would have won. His campaign was full of incompetence, that he was in control of. There where many areas where he did wrong. What helped Bush, just like what is helping Clinton is that being fairly moderate honks votes from across the political spectrum. That is the definition of a opportunistic politician. Someone who is not so nuanced in their beliefs. When Hillary has the stance on Marijuana she has, she hopes that she both gets the votes from people who are against legalizing weed, and those who are for it. But in reality, reducing the drug to a lower class, is doing depressingly little. It's taking a blatant no-stance, of trying to run out the clock and not lose decisive voters where this issue is a deal breaker.
Hillary Clinton is a smart politician and she doesn't come out for a cause before it makes sense. The XL pipeline is going to happen, so she can comfortable say she is against it and look more liberal. The same is true for the Iran deal. Both the XL pipeline and the Iran deal, were some of the issues were Hillary was incredible hostile. Her war rhetoric and threats towards Iran were of McCain levels. Along with the TPP, it feels like mental gymnastic reducing all these issues as just being Hillary Evolving.
You don't just evolve over so many issues that fast. It's being incomprehensible naive. And if you look closer, on the minimum wage. For years and years people had tried to get her to being the rallying cry for that movement. She didn't come out for it until 2014 well into her pre-planning.
While these are the actions of a gifted tactician and political powermachine, I think it is being obtuse to act surprised when people have a deep seated problem with her. You shouldn't be surprised that so many young voters are incredible angry. They don't understand how somebody can just be just vetted for the job, or just have virtually all the delegates or some mysteriously still have the support of all the unions, when her opponent is the champion of those causes. It doesn't make sense, and it makes Hillary somehow the symbol of that anger. She is just a symptom of a corrupt system where Democrats brought themselves down 30 years ago and engaged in many of the same dirty political tactics that their republican opponents did, but she still harnesses that anger.
And I think that the more people try to apologize Hillary Clintons past while simultaneously bringing up her experience is inexcusable. It' is double standards of the highest of order. Selection bias where only Clintons victories matter, and her failures are just opinions she has nuanced on. The same is true when the actions against her husband comes up. She owns his victories, but not his defeats and mistakes. It's upsetting and a fallacy.
Hillary Clinton is not a terrible person like Donald Trump is a terrible person, and that makes the difference.
Blaming Ralph Nader is some CNN levels of dumb logic. I wish people would stop keeping that myth alive.
Bush won because he was fairly moderate. The Democratic party is full of disguised moderates, which just further gives credibility to people like Sanders and Nader who are the only ones calling out all the disgusting tools hiding among the democratic mists.
The Iraq war was a popular war among the democrats which further shows how not-progressive a lot of them are. Hillary Clinton is the perfect leader for this lot. On some issues she is more pro-war than McCain.
Please spare us this shit that the Iraq war is on the republicans when she voted yes for it, knowing what would happen.
Please spare us this shit when she has been since then the instigator of several of the worst conflicts in the 21th century. She does this while at the same time taking campaign contributions from mass murdering Saudi monachs- The main funders of ISIS.
There is no level of mental gymnastic you can fucking pull to remove her record on these foreign policy issues. At a certain point you cannot deflect with the guilty by association card. She is literally running on money from people who engage in some of the worst human rights violations in the world. It's up there with North Korea and Mugabe.
You should still vote for her, just like you should have voted for Obama. But engaging in this blatant historical revisionism and perplexing these lies about Nader being the culprit of the Iraq war. Gross.
As a foreigner it just makes me more angry, that there are so many people who are willing to bend and try and rewrite history because they are too far into the fanboy loop of Hillary Clinton. She loves war. She believes in the military industrial complex and this ideal that America has the right to fly drones into innocents home over some make belief fantasy war she helped orchestrate.
There has never been secular tribal civil wars solved by outside parties (to my knowledge) so this idea that she is on her actions as SOS out of the good of those people is drinking offensive levels of kool-aid. She isn't dumb. Defense spending remains a major source of income and interest for the US war machine, and it is in the countrys interest to engage in warfare. Either as a seller of arms or direct instigator. It's a charade that people like Hillary Clinton pretend Saddam was ever a threat to America. She along with a majority of Democrats on the vote agreed to this shit.
She represents everything that makes US democratic politicians look like hypocrites in the international community. You can vote for someone like her (and you should vote for her against Trump) and still correctly understand the historical facts that coexisted revolving around the invasion of Iraq.
Over half a million children had died of starvation in Iraq under US heralded sanctions in the mid 90s under Clintons watch. These sanctions were so severe that several UN officials quit in protest saying that they were genocidal in nature. So this idea that "thousands more could be alive had you not voted for Nader". What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even have a modicum of understanding just what the US has done to Iraq and do you understand just how much it has created radical terrorisim where there was but a tiny fraction?
This idea that that you can scapegoat everything on the republicans and make the democrats look like heroes makes me sick. Blatant shitty lies ushered by ignorance.
And let me irederate for the third time; You should vote for Clinton. Pointing out her record and the record of other dems- Like Kerry, Biden and everyone else who thinks Team America is an accurate depiction of foreign policy, is not the same as thinking Trump should win. He clearly shouldn't as he is much worse. But that doesn't give you the right to make Hillary infallible. There are people here who point it out, but I am speaking directly to the people who are saying Nader caused those deaths in Iraq (by letting Gore lose the election, which is false), and to those that say that Hillary Clinton voted yes to Iraq war in good faith. That is bullshit by untold levels of magnitude.
There was mass protests all over the world months and months before the war started. The iraq war is a war crime. Even with WMDs it would have been a war crime. It included military coverups of murdering of civilian, it includes massive international breach of human rights violation by torture in abu ghraib and Guantanamo, and the war itself has killed over 1,5 million people- Mostly innocents.
Politicians involved knew what was going to happen because there is not a track record of world power intervention in a civil war that has a happy ending, besides taking direct steps to stop a genocide. And the US is clearly not eager to stop genocide- Neither is Europe. When Saddam gassed thousands kurds in the late 80s, nobody gave enough of a shit to do anything because as long as he has followed a pattern of being useful to US interest he is allowed to state.
So let's kill any notion that the Iraq war was not a selfish war over bullshit, and 1,5 million died for bullshit. There are dictators all over the world, many who are worse than saddam, and all who are not being invaded because the result of invasion and meddling in a local countries civil war feuds ALWAYs ends in disaster. Bushs administration knew this. And Hillary Clinton knew this. The world knew it, as millions and millions of us protested in mass protests all over the world throughout 2002 and the early 2003.
There wasn't anybody who didn't know that the US weapon inspectors wouldn't find shit. And when they didn't find shit they went anyway. Even if the false intel bullshit would have been right, they shouldn't have been able to do anything. There were dozens of countries more inflated with Terrorists than Iraq. Including- surprise surprise, Saudi arabia.
I would have been susceptible to believe that Hillary Clinton would have been off the hook if that had been the end of it. But her repeated actions (and Obama) to a large part suggests, that she along with republicans like McCain believe that direct military intervention or supporting rebels through military might has good outcomes. These outcomes led to the formation of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, just as the Iraq war led to ISIS, and the indirect trading, arms selling and oil trade indirectly finances ISIS activity. You cannot in good confidence make the argument that the republicans and democrats who honestly believe that intervention in Yemen, Syria and Libya was to help the locals. They know damn well that it makes everything first.
And it's the same with arming of Israel- of which Bernie Sanders is also guilty. But there is virtually no mainstream US politician under the sun (that I know off) who has distanced itself from the military enabling of the state.
Instead of humanitarian aid, government sanctions, modern US foreign policy is playing out like Eisenhowers worst nightmare. The Iran deal is one of the best things Obama has done, and it shows what progressive thinking is about. Intervention in local conflicts trying to stir the outcomes or topple dictators over selfish interest is a war crime by proxy, because of what it leads to. It is Americas job to protect. But it is not protecting anybody when you bomb a country, refuse to pick up the pieces and am unable to keep a peace as a country devolves into complete destruction that increases the death toll compared to the dictator.
Even a dictator kills protesters or throws journalists in prison it doesn't compare to what happens, and how many people die in a civil war.
Hillary Clinton is not going to change things, in the same way that Obama is not going to change things. There will be some progress like Obamacare, like the Iran deal, like the progress for gay marriage, but it is an impossible battle when you're in bed with the corporate elite- And she is.
But being in bed with the elite is nothing new. Donald Trump is not that.
Who you vote for reflects your belief. It's who you support.
What Liu Kang Bakes a Pie said, about trump leading to an economic collapse is an interesting idea. It sounds like the "you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette". But what are the chances that Trump would cause a government collapse that would allow a peaceful reformation, sort of like how the soviet union collapsed with a whimper. Not a mass civil war. Would the parties cut all the debt, start a new US currency, throw the constitution in the trash and write something new that didn't reflect the minds and wishes of racist slave owners who ran on religious beliefs?
What are the chances that a donald trump presidency would be violent?
It's a risk. It's a risk saying that you would want your country to burn. It's an anarchist fantasy, and they are fun to speculate on. Everyday here in Europe we talk about what would happen if the Eurozone ended and the Euro currency collapsed. Could the short term disaster, panic, upset and destruction cause good things?
When the arab spring started, many people were hopeful and talked about a new muslim golden age. the new uprising and reformation of the muslim world that would allow it to remove itself from its corrupt shackles.
What scares me the most, is the Brave New World-like apathy that we have in the western world. We are upset when people protest. We are fearful of change. We do not want different, and we think same-as-always is safe. But all empires fail. I agree that the United States being in complete standstill thanks to gerrymandering, patent trolls and so much of its income not going back into investing into the economy is serious risks at undermining the very power structure of their position as a world leader. At least economically. And that is scary, because when the US needs something. Be it manpower, oil or other resources it just takes it. it orchestrate conflicts, it overthrows governments, its intelligence community has a long history of fucking with asian and latin american countries- which many of them have never recovered from.
But even so. Even with all this, we have to admit to the notion that a world where Russia or China is the world leader who creates the agenda, is a much, much worse world. We are harsh on America because it needs to be better, but also because it can be better. Russia and China doesn't have that in the current incarnations.
Hillary Clinton is a smart politician and she doesn't come out for a cause before it makes sense. The XL pipeline is going to happen, so she can comfortable say she is against it and look more liberal. The same is true for the Iran deal. Both the XL pipeline and the Iran deal, were some of the issues were Hillary was incredible hostile. Her war rhetoric and threats towards Iran were of McCain levels. Along with the TPP, it feels like mental gymnastic reducing all these issues as just being Hillary Evolving.
You don't just evolve over so many issues that fast. It's being incomprehensible naive. And if you look closer, on the minimum wage. For years and years people had tried to get her to being the rallying cry for that movement. She didn't come out for it until 2014 well into her pre-planning.
While these are the actions of a gifted tactician and political powermachine, I think it is being obtuse to act surprised when people have a deep seated problem with her. You shouldn't be surprised that so many young voters are incredible angry. They don't understand how somebody can just be just vetted for the job, or just have virtually all the delegates or some mysteriously still have the support of all the unions, when her opponent is the champion of those causes. It doesn't make sense, and it makes Hillary somehow the symbol of that anger. She is just a symptom of a corrupt system where Democrats brought themselves down 30 years ago and engaged in many of the same dirty political tactics that their republican opponents did, but she still harnesses that anger.
And I think that the more people try to apologize Hillary Clintons past while simultaneously bringing up her experience is inexcusable. It' is double standards of the highest of order. Selection bias where only Clintons victories matter, and her failures are just opinions she has nuanced on. The same is true when the actions against her husband comes up. She owns his victories, but not his defeats and mistakes. It's upsetting and a fallacy.
Hillary Clinton is not a terrible person like Donald Trump is a terrible person, and that makes the difference.
Blaming Ralph Nader is some CNN levels of dumb logic. I wish people would stop keeping that myth alive.
Bush won because he was fairly moderate. The Democratic party is full of disguised moderates, which just further gives credibility to people like Sanders and Nader who are the only ones calling out all the disgusting tools hiding among the democratic mists.
The Iraq war was a popular war among the democrats which further shows how not-progressive a lot of them are. Hillary Clinton is the perfect leader for this lot. On some issues she is more pro-war than McCain.
Please spare us this shit that the Iraq war is on the republicans when she voted yes for it, knowing what would happen.
Please spare us this shit when she has been since then the instigator of several of the worst conflicts in the 21th century. She does this while at the same time taking campaign contributions from mass murdering Saudi monachs- The main funders of ISIS.
There is no level of mental gymnastic you can fucking pull to remove her record on these foreign policy issues. At a certain point you cannot deflect with the guilty by association card. She is literally running on money from people who engage in some of the worst human rights violations in the world. It's up there with North Korea and Mugabe.
You should still vote for her, just like you should have voted for Obama. But engaging in this blatant historical revisionism and perplexing these lies about Nader being the culprit of the Iraq war. Gross.
As a foreigner it just makes me more angry, that there are so many people who are willing to bend and try and rewrite history because they are too far into the fanboy loop of Hillary Clinton. She loves war. She believes in the military industrial complex and this ideal that America has the right to fly drones into innocents home over some make belief fantasy war she helped orchestrate.
There has never been secular tribal civil wars solved by outside parties (to my knowledge) so this idea that she is on her actions as SOS out of the good of those people is drinking offensive levels of kool-aid. She isn't dumb. Defense spending remains a major source of income and interest for the US war machine, and it is in the countrys interest to engage in warfare. Either as a seller of arms or direct instigator. It's a charade that people like Hillary Clinton pretend Saddam was ever a threat to America. She along with a majority of Democrats on the vote agreed to this shit.
She represents everything that makes US democratic politicians look like hypocrites in the international community. You can vote for someone like her (and you should vote for her against Trump) and still correctly understand the historical facts that coexisted revolving around the invasion of Iraq.
Over half a million children had died of starvation in Iraq under US heralded sanctions in the mid 90s under Clintons watch. These sanctions were so severe that several UN officials quit in protest saying that they were genocidal in nature. So this idea that "thousands more could be alive had you not voted for Nader". What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even have a modicum of understanding just what the US has done to Iraq and do you understand just how much it has created radical terrorisim where there was but a tiny fraction?
This idea that that you can scapegoat everything on the republicans and make the democrats look like heroes makes me sick. Blatant shitty lies ushered by ignorance.
And let me irederate for the third time; You should vote for Clinton. Pointing out her record and the record of other dems- Like Kerry, Biden and everyone else who thinks Team America is an accurate depiction of foreign policy, is not the same as thinking Trump should win. He clearly shouldn't as he is much worse. But that doesn't give you the right to make Hillary infallible. There are people here who point it out, but I am speaking directly to the people who are saying Nader caused those deaths in Iraq (by letting Gore lose the election, which is false), and to those that say that Hillary Clinton voted yes to Iraq war in good faith. That is bullshit by untold levels of magnitude.
There was mass protests all over the world months and months before the war started. The iraq war is a war crime. Even with WMDs it would have been a war crime. It included military coverups of murdering of civilian, it includes massive international breach of human rights violation by torture in abu ghraib and Guantanamo, and the war itself has killed over 1,5 million people- Mostly innocents.
Politicians involved knew what was going to happen because there is not a track record of world power intervention in a civil war that has a happy ending, besides taking direct steps to stop a genocide. And the US is clearly not eager to stop genocide- Neither is Europe. When Saddam gassed thousands kurds in the late 80s, nobody gave enough of a shit to do anything because as long as he has followed a pattern of being useful to US interest he is allowed to state.
So let's kill any notion that the Iraq war was not a selfish war over bullshit, and 1,5 million died for bullshit. There are dictators all over the world, many who are worse than saddam, and all who are not being invaded because the result of invasion and meddling in a local countries civil war feuds ALWAYs ends in disaster. Bushs administration knew this. And Hillary Clinton knew this. The world knew it, as millions and millions of us protested in mass protests all over the world throughout 2002 and the early 2003.
There wasn't anybody who didn't know that the US weapon inspectors wouldn't find shit. And when they didn't find shit they went anyway. Even if the false intel bullshit would have been right, they shouldn't have been able to do anything. There were dozens of countries more inflated with Terrorists than Iraq. Including- surprise surprise, Saudi arabia.
I would have been susceptible to believe that Hillary Clinton would have been off the hook if that had been the end of it. But her repeated actions (and Obama) to a large part suggests, that she along with republicans like McCain believe that direct military intervention or supporting rebels through military might has good outcomes. These outcomes led to the formation of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, just as the Iraq war led to ISIS, and the indirect trading, arms selling and oil trade indirectly finances ISIS activity. You cannot in good confidence make the argument that the republicans and democrats who honestly believe that intervention in Yemen, Syria and Libya was to help the locals. They know damn well that it makes everything first.
And it's the same with arming of Israel- of which Bernie Sanders is also guilty. But there is virtually no mainstream US politician under the sun (that I know off) who has distanced itself from the military enabling of the state.
Instead of humanitarian aid, government sanctions, modern US foreign policy is playing out like Eisenhowers worst nightmare. The Iran deal is one of the best things Obama has done, and it shows what progressive thinking is about. Intervention in local conflicts trying to stir the outcomes or topple dictators over selfish interest is a war crime by proxy, because of what it leads to. It is Americas job to protect. But it is not protecting anybody when you bomb a country, refuse to pick up the pieces and am unable to keep a peace as a country devolves into complete destruction that increases the death toll compared to the dictator.
Even a dictator kills protesters or throws journalists in prison it doesn't compare to what happens, and how many people die in a civil war.
Hillary Clinton is not going to change things, in the same way that Obama is not going to change things. There will be some progress like Obamacare, like the Iran deal, like the progress for gay marriage, but it is an impossible battle when you're in bed with the corporate elite- And she is.
But being in bed with the elite is nothing new. Donald Trump is not that.
Who you vote for reflects your belief. It's who you support.
What Liu Kang Bakes a Pie said, about trump leading to an economic collapse is an interesting idea. It sounds like the "you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette". But what are the chances that Trump would cause a government collapse that would allow a peaceful reformation, sort of like how the soviet union collapsed with a whimper. Not a mass civil war. Would the parties cut all the debt, start a new US currency, throw the constitution in the trash and write something new that didn't reflect the minds and wishes of racist slave owners who ran on religious beliefs?
What are the chances that a donald trump presidency would be violent?
It's a risk. It's a risk saying that you would want your country to burn. It's an anarchist fantasy, and they are fun to speculate on. Everyday here in Europe we talk about what would happen if the Eurozone ended and the Euro currency collapsed. Could the short term disaster, panic, upset and destruction cause good things?
When the arab spring started, many people were hopeful and talked about a new muslim golden age. the new uprising and reformation of the muslim world that would allow it to remove itself from its corrupt shackles.
What scares me the most, is the Brave New World-like apathy that we have in the western world. We are upset when people protest. We are fearful of change. We do not want different, and we think same-as-always is safe. But all empires fail. I agree that the United States being in complete standstill thanks to gerrymandering, patent trolls and so much of its income not going back into investing into the economy is serious risks at undermining the very power structure of their position as a world leader. At least economically. And that is scary, because when the US needs something. Be it manpower, oil or other resources it just takes it. it orchestrate conflicts, it overthrows governments, its intelligence community has a long history of fucking with asian and latin american countries- which many of them have never recovered from.
But even so. Even with all this, we have to admit to the notion that a world where Russia or China is the world leader who creates the agenda, is a much, much worse world. We are harsh on America because it needs to be better, but also because it can be better. Russia and China doesn't have that in the current incarnations.
IrishNinja
Member
i don't know what i like more; seeing further quoting of angelus' post, or the whining about it
droppin knowledge
"liberals fall in love, conservatives fall in line" - not sure who originally said it, but it tends to hold true
we keep hearing it won't this time around - and trump may very well cause some long overdue rifts in the party - but we'll see, come november
droppin knowledge
"liberals fall in love, conservatives fall in line" - not sure who originally said it, but it tends to hold true
we keep hearing it won't this time around - and trump may very well cause some long overdue rifts in the party - but we'll see, come november
QuantumSquid
Member
Here is how I see it.
Whether you vote or not, someone is going to be the next president. Even if you hate both candidates, you probably hate one of them at least a little less than the other. Such is the case with the 2016 election for me; I don't like Hillary, but I fucking deplore Trump. So, if the final two candidates end up being Hillary and Trump, I'm voting for Hillary. Not voting at all means one less vote that could potentially prevent Trump from winning, and so personally I do not see the logic in not voting.
Whether you vote or not, someone is going to be the next president. Even if you hate both candidates, you probably hate one of them at least a little less than the other. Such is the case with the 2016 election for me; I don't like Hillary, but I fucking deplore Trump. So, if the final two candidates end up being Hillary and Trump, I'm voting for Hillary. Not voting at all means one less vote that could potentially prevent Trump from winning, and so personally I do not see the logic in not voting.
Bingo. Not voting in 2016 is a a selfish act.
Cybrwzrd
Banned
I would say that its rather short sighted, and quite insulting to those of us who are socialists. It proves that Social Justice is the left's version of Pro-life. A great method of keeping the base distracted from the bigger picture.
The right is pretty smart. They create fiscal policy that keeps a large group of their base poor and uneducated. It also shits on minorities because it gives said base something to feel "better" than. They created a self replicating base of followers and the establishment on the left doesn't try to fight it - because they also benefit from it.
boiled goose
good with gravy
I don't disagree haha
vainglorious
Member
People tend to react negatively when they're confronted with their privilege.
AaronB
Member
Oh, I'd say it's significantly worse among conservatives. The GOP contains groups of people who have wildly different views - libertarians, religious conservatives, nativists, and the party elites (for whom devotion to religion, nation, and small government are just a show). Every election cycle, the party elites get their nominee, then try to convince the electorate that they need to hold their nose and vote this time, because if they don't vote it's the same as voting for a democrat, and they'll get a supreme court nominee or two. Sound familiar?
The GOP voters are in revolt, though. Being endorsed by the establishment was a death-knell this election cycle. Even when they were down to a single establishment candidate - Rubio - he couldn't win his own state.
The Supreme Court thing is way overblown from either side. Republican-nominated Kennedy was the deciding vote for gay marriage (and most of the dissent was about the Supreme Court's role - it was progressing democratically state-by-state), Roberts upheld Obamacare, and Roe v Wade was not overturned - and that was before the death of Scalia. The Supreme Court is the last boogeyman used to attempt to force people to go along with the parties' status quo.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Has the litmus test for being left moved so far that you have to advocate for Socialism before you are considered "left"?
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
But they didn't get what they wanted! So fuck everything!!
That's more like it. If you gotta eat the maggot sammich, you don't have to like and put on a big ol grin. Nor does it make you a misogynist.
CharminUltra
Member
Set everything on fire to cleanse the world.
I'm in the south so I'm gonna vote for Jill Stein. My vote already won't count for anything so might as well not vote for Hillary.
I think it's kinda silly, but a lot of socialists believe nobody who advocates capitalism or endorses any kind of imperialism can be considered part of the left
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
What are you talking about? The whole point of the post is that if you're a leftist/progressive/liberal/socialist/whathaveyou and are voting for Trump because Sanders didn't get the nom, you're being an idiot who votes against their own self-interest. That is the bigger picture. Even if social justice isn't your priority and socialist economic policies are, you're still far less likely to get that from Trump than from Clinton.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
Well, could be worse. Like that poster who is advocating for an American Arab Spring like situation where the government dissolves and we rewrite the constitution.
Good lord... I can't at all see that working out with the state certain things are right now.
Cybrwzrd
Banned
She is saying sitting out is bad. If you are a Sanders supporter who will vote for Trump, you are an idiot. That being said, demanding someone hold their nose and vote party before ideology is what is wrong with our system in the first place. Calling them privileged and no true Scotsman is childish and doesn't exactly help her cause.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
I'm liberal, but you're basically calling anyone who doesn't agree 100% with you a "disgusting tool" . When did Moderate become a something evil? For example, I'm all for legalizing all drugs but if there is a liberal democrat who feels maybe Heroin shouldn't be legal or even pot, i'm not going to kick them out of the party and call them a "disgusting tool"
I mean we make fun of the tea party, but do we really want the democratic party to be an all or nothing affair? Seem rather short sighted and dangerous.
vainglorious
Member
Yeah, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face but being able to live without your nose because of privilege.
Mercury Fred
Banned
With this election more than any other, progressives and the left have a chance to pave the way for a very different America going forward. Changing up the SC will have radical and possibly quite wonderful ramifications for the future and near future of the left.
To choke now because you can't have your 100% ideal candidate is fucking baffling and obnoxiously short sighted.
Come on with this maggot sandwich shit. It's embarrassing.
To choke now because you can't have your 100% ideal candidate is fucking baffling and obnoxiously short sighted.
Come on with this maggot sandwich shit. It's embarrassing.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I keep coming back to this article, and it makes me legit fear for the future that more and more don't get this basic concept of government:
It's rather short and worth reading the whole thing: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/opinion/the-governing-cancer-of-our-time.html
I was following the line of conversation already established by a couple of posters. I guess it's only "embarrassing" when it's negative on Hillary.
Mercury Fred
Banned
Oh wow.
FunkyMunkey
Banned
you really are embarrassing yourself
- Status