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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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Tamanon

Banned
I'm curious where the "millions to the Clinton foundation" comes in, because I didn't see anything about it beyond the opening paragraph. It's a weird article.
 
I would love for nothing more than for Democrats to swing ~40 seats in the House and basically win every “51st seat” gambit. Beat Cruz and Moore, pick up Tennessee and McCain’s seat in a special.

Just so we’re all clear, I don’t think that’s particularly likely.
 
Mccain.

I said gawt damn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjHeSsbGAI

I said GAWT DAMN


Mccain SPittin' straight fire.

HOOLEEEY SHIT

tenor.gif
 

Nasbin

Member
Equivocating between a petrol state despot and liberal interventionism so that you can blame all the world's ills on The Great Satan makes you a tankie at worst and a useful idiot at best. Absolving Russia of its responsibility in shaping the current geopolitical fuck up that is the Middle East is about as kind a gesture as you can make to your pal Vlad, whether you claim to be defending him or not.

Leftists who could pass for RT blogs once just seemed insufferably naive, but today they seem to relish in America's self-destruction in a way that makes them indistinguishable from the know-nothing fascists they presume to sneer at.
 
I would love for nothing more than for Democrats to swing ~40 seats in the House and basically win every ”51st seat" gambit. Beat Cruz and Moore, pick up Tennessee and McCain's seat in a special.

Just so we're all clear, I don't think that's particularly likely.

I keep looking at it that on a good night, we'll hit 50. So to make it an extra special night, we only need one surprise win. One surprise win is not impossible. I think 2018 is going to be wacky. Probably a bit unpredictable.
 
Pigeon is arguing that.

Saying that America's actions overseas are "stupid" and that its current wars and propping up of brutal regimes as also "stupid" is a morally reprehensible abdication of responsibility. They're not well-intentioned blunders or accidental. They're not unforeseeable or unintentional.

Signature strikes and triple taps and regime change and the current state of the Middle East and the funding of apartheid states and the funding of fascist political movements (yeah, Russia didn't invent that) and all of the other brutalities that America perpetrates against the Global South are not silly bone headed blunders.

Let's remember that this discussion started with the term "global supervillain." And any materialist evaluation of America's foreign policy should prove that it deserves the title.

The only way in which Russia is actively worse than the United States is the way in which it fucks up liberals' West Wing / fifth grade American history class view of the world where no one acknowledges American imperialism at all and warmongers are euphemistically called "hawkish" and considered patriots.

Vladimir Putin is an evil, brutal, murderous gangster who should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. All of the things you mentioned are horrific and sickening. But any honest look at the numbers will tell you that he's not actually hurting or killing more people, currently, than the American natsec establishment.

I'll ask you the same question I asked pigeon: do you think the title of global supervillain should apply to the country with the worst intentions or the country that actually kills and harms the most people?

I'm not a tankie. Firstly because implying that Russia is still the USSR is bottom tier shitlib lazy propaganda that is only compelling to Pod Save America listeners. And second because tankies traditionally actually defend the actions of the USSR (and Stalin specifically) and I have not done that with Putin. All I've said is that if there is a "global supervillain" right now it's sure as shit the United States, however much ignorant insular libs might try to minimise its actions.

Again this is the materialist reading. I'm sure that Russia offends your sensibilities more than America does. But using aesthetic considerations as a substitute for morality is, well, immoral.



People would deny the holodomor or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and get called tankies. They didn't get called tankies for, uh, acknowledging the existence of imperialism. That's just the entire Left.

Also to be clear but also like factually correct the term comes from the people who defended the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 not from Stalin executing people with tanks which I have never heard of

That pigeon, always denying the reality of racism in America.

Really though, I'm just disappointed you didn't throw in a reference to pumpkin spice lattes . "Boy, you liberals sure love your Aaron Sorkin and pumpkin spice, huh?"
 
I keep looking at it that on a good night, we'll hit 50. So to make it an extra special night, we only need one surprise win. One surprise win is not impossible. I think 2018 is going to be wacky. Probably a bit unpredictable.
If we like win Tennessee and lose McCaskill or Donnelly or something I’m going to scream.
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
That pigeon, always denying the reality of racism in America.

Really though, I'm just disappointed you didn't throw in a reference to pumpkin spice lattes . "Boy, you liberals sure love your Aaron Sorkin and pumpkin spice, huh?"

I know right it's fucked up but apparently they think it's a Russian conspiracy or something. I'm disappointed too.

The pumpkin spice thing is more of a right wing insult. We make fun of you guys for getting all mad about their windows being broken.
 

studyguy

Member
Does Kelly have any self-respect whatsoever? Christ.

The guy asked his son not be brought up well before he came into the admin iirc, this is just sad tbh.
Shit's as bad as that one guy who was protesting Biden's dead son on the campaign trail.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
This all seems to have gotten terribly off the topic of NATO, which is what I'm actually concerned with. If you really do care about American imperialism and warmongering "the dissolution of NATO" seems like a really bad way to achieve that objective, because we know that other powers like Russia are being held in check by the agreement. "Restructure NATO to expand protections to more vulnerable nations" is a much more compelling argument that I don't actually see being made.
The fact that losing NATO is so obviously in Russia's interest means that, at best, people do actually think that Russia isn't "that big a deal" compared to the US, which is an argument that probably has more weight before the Crimea annexation
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
Against my better judgment I read this whole thing. I don't see anything beyond "Russian side of Russian business deal with the US is corrupt as fuck, and about a dozen people with bank accounts in Cyprus got $35,000 each."


The article kept throwing unrelated names in there to see what would stick, holder, Obama etc but never bothered to get a quote from any of the parties involved, including multiple American corporations.
 

Ac30

Member
Countdown until Kelly tells reporters Obama spoke to him in person in 2010 and Trump was mistaken on the story?

Kelly is going to kiss the ring and deny everything. Besides, wasn’t this about any form of contact? Trump hasn’t even sent letters.
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
This all seems to have gotten terribly off the topic of NATO, which is what I'm actually concerned with. If you really do care about American imperialism and warmongering "the dissolution of NATO" seems like a really bad way to achieve that objective, because we know that other powers like Russia are being held in check by the agreement. "Restructure NATO to expand protections to more vulnerable nations" is a much more compelling argument that I don't actually see being made.
The fact that losing NATO is so obviously in Russia's interest means that, at best, people do actually think that Russia isn't "that big a deal" compared to the US, which is an argument that probably has more weight before the Crimea annexation

I don't disagree with any of this except for the last part which I don't fully understand but probably don't disagree with either.

Believe me, I'm already aware of Leftist-GAF's fondness for memes about this community that aren't based on or even vaguely influenced by reality.

I was talking about liberals in general, I'm not aware of the lefitst opinion of GAF as a whole beyond "liberal and pro-Clinton"

Although one meme about liberals that does apply here is the way they badly misunderstand leftist terms like "tankie" and then try to appropriate them without really understanding what they mean
 

KingV

Member
What’s ridiculou is how this is an argument over pure spin.

Like Trump original statement was essentially “I haven’t called or written letters.... yet!” So he basically already admitted that he doesn’t call or write letters.

So this whole dust up is just to make him look comparably better by trying to find instances where Obama also did not call or write letters.

It’s incredibly petty, and meaningless. McMaster and Kelly (and really all of his cabinet) both have basically decided to throw whatever credibility they once had into the sewer to protect Trump.

However, I suspect all of them will eventually try to claim some sort of higher calling of sacrificing their reputation to protect America front Trump.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I don't disagree with any of this except for the last part which I don't fully understand but probably don't disagree with either.
Basically just that people who are straight up for the dissolution of NATO probably don't really think Russia's going to be that bad when the pressure's off. And Russia does have economic problems that would probably keep them from being able to roll out as much force as the US deploys. On the other hand, Crimea just indicates that Russia is actually possibly interested in some wars of conquest
 

mlclmtckr

Banned
Basically just that people who are straight up for the dissolution of NATO probably don't really think Russia's going to be that bad when the pressure's off. And Russia does have economic problems that would probably keep them from being able to roll out as much force as the US deploys. On the other hand, Crimea just indicates that Russia is actually possibly interested in some wars of conquest

Oh, for sure.

The weirdest thing is that these Young Labour people seem to think that it's NATO itself starting wars of aggression, as if without NATO there never could have been an Iraq war or something, which just makes zero sense to me.

Putin definitely wants all of Ukraine. He probably wants the entire territory of the USSR to be Russia again too. And I agree that it's Western pressure that's mostly keeping him in check. But, yeah, at some point a completely broken kleptocracy with an unhappy and unhealthy population and not a lot going on economically outside of oil is going to have to run out of steam.
 
Bookmark for future reference:

That's a load of horseshit. They'll fail on taxes, and healthcare, and abortion, and everything else they promise their base, and it won't matter because they're successful in advocating for white supremacy. Turns out there's a pretty large segment of the population that votes solely on that issue. "Muslims are terrorists and black people are stealing from you" is the only position the Republican Party needs to stay relevant for a disgustingly long time.
 

kirblar

Member
That's a load of horseshit. They'll fail on taxes, and healthcare, and abortion, and everything else they promise their base, and it won't matter because they're successful in advocating for white supremacy. Turns out there's a pretty large segment of the population that votes solely on that issue. "Muslims are terrorists and black people are stealing from you" is the only position the Republican Party needs to stay relevant for a disgustingly long time.
This specific problem isn't about their base. It's about their donors.
 
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