HomeNot to get ahead of ourselves but if when W dies you are ok with the nation celebrating his “achievements” over calling out that he was the architect of the largest foreign catastrophe in US history that has led to millions of lives lost or displaced then you have a seriously fucked up outlook.
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The Donald J. Trump Presidency
Nick- anorexic Skeletor
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I feel like what this funeral and McCain's funeral has shown us is that we're not gonna have a shortage of people calling bullshit over a rose-coloured view of W's legacy when the time comes so it's not superimportant to worry about it.
It also seems likely McCain and HW Bush are benefiting from a desire to contrast them with Trump in the media.
It also seems likely McCain and HW Bush are benefiting from a desire to contrast them with Trump in the media.
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First two seem to me like basically "shit presidents do" but the third and fourth are more compelling reasons, I think.I think HW was a terrible President and the whitewashing of his record this week is ridiculous. It is equally important to highlight his War on Drugs, Iran-Contra involvements, racist campaign ads & that he was a groper as it is that a bunch of people think he was an alright guy.
Had a long post in mind but basically this
Duff... wrote:It also seems likely McCain and HW Bush are benefiting from a desire to contrast them with Trump in the media.
is basically right. I do think there's some value in keeping in mind that Trump is orders of magnitude worse than any other president, though. I wouldn't want that to get lost in the service of not going easy on his predecessors.
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undo wrote:raj gibson wrote:Almost all of Undo's arguments would have been applicable to early newspaper publishing and many would apply to mass printing / mass literacy before that. In both spirit and implementation, it's autocracy. Even the seemingly unobjectionable redistribution of private resources to an obviously deserving group like children is a classic move of dictatorship.
Your best outcome is probably something like China's regulation of the Internet, deeply autocratic but arguably positive in a paternalistic sort of way in that a big chunk of that society is OK with it, so I hope you like the views of whoever you empower to pull that plug (and whoever comes after them, of course). Worst outcome, I don't even want to think about...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/20/facebook-google-antitrust-laws-gilded-age
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/21/facebook-george-soros-zuckerberg-1012545
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/technology/facebook-documents-uk-parliament.html
For me proposed solutions like patent reform or a more aggressive antitrust policy, while not without complications, are much more compelling than, like, seizing an enormous company's assets and disenfranchising its workers and shareholders in an attempt to nationalize a big chunk of the internet.
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raj gibson wrote:seizing an enormous company's assets and disenfranchising its workers and shareholders in an attempt to nationalize a big chunk of the internet.
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Was surprised to see that the President of the United States was tweeting about better security for us boarders, this morning. Wild.
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Ned, this could mean that your eventual Senate run will indeed be safe from any LoPP-related scandals.
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techno raj wrote:I do think there's some value in keeping in mind that Trump is orders of magnitude worse than any other president, though. I wouldn't want that to get lost in the service of not going easy on his predecessors.
To be honest, one of my most controversial political opinions is that I don't think Trump will ever inflict as much harm on the world as George W. Bush did. The War on Terror, Patriot Act, and neoconservatism were so unbelievably destructive (to the tune of millions of lives and trillions of dollars) that Trump would have to concoct a ridiculous foreign policy disaster to even compare.
The only other area where Trump could do as much damage as Bush would be on climate change, but Bush was also very very regressive on climate policy.
I am very invested in not having us forget that millions of Iraqis and Afghanis died by our hands.
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LMFAO Ned. Congrats on getting a firm handshake from that ghoul 
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chrondog wrote:Trump would have to concoct a ridiculous foreign policy disaster to even compare.
I mean this is very much still on the table.
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That is true, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Trump's anti-intervention instincts seems to be legit, despite his foreign policy bravado. It's one of his few (accidentally) redeeming qualities.
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It's been fucking disgusting watching Congressional Democrats suddenly vocalizing their support for the unilateral deployment of troops, without the requirement of their own congressional approval. If they don't want to lead on these issues, they should fuck off.
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It's so upsetting to think about the amount of grassroots energy that gets squandered by these shills. My own representative is already such a disappointment. He has already expressed his opposition to the creation of a Green New Deal committee, because "real change needs to be focused on local and pragmatic solutions," or some stupid excuse like that.
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world feels pretty endy these days huh
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I listened to The Daily’s podcast this morning which was the year in review via audio clips.
I haven’t recovered 12 hours later.
I haven’t recovered 12 hours later.
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chrondog wrote:To be honest, one of my most controversial political opinions is that I don't think Trump will ever inflict as much harm on the world as George W. Bush did. The War on Terror, Patriot Act, and neoconservatism were so unbelievably destructive (to the tune of millions of lives and trillions of dollars) that Trump would have to concoct a ridiculous foreign policy disaster to even compare.
The only other area where Trump could do as much damage as Bush would be on climate change, but Bush was also very very regressive on climate policy.
I am very invested in not having us forget that millions of Iraqis and Afghanis died by our hands.
Here's my controversial political opinion - the Patriot Act would have happened regardless. Some form of Afghan invasion would have happened regardless. The Iraq war was the big discretionary commitment, and difficult to say what would have been different absent that, although I think by the Arab Spring we would have seen some regional conflict (possibly Syria x2) involving Iraq and its difficult to imagine the U.S. staying completely out.
So far the Trump years have mercifully had few foreign incidents that lend themselves to major interventions but that's more just good luck than anything, and maybe some non-intervationalism by way of plain disinterest on Trump's part. It doesn't make Trump look any better to me vis-a-vis Bush. If I had to choose between the two for a context-neutral stretch of years I would choose Bush every time.
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I disagree with large parts of that analysis, but I see your point. The hawkish impulses of the Democratic Party cannot be understated. It's difficult to say what President Al Gore, for example, would have done post-9/11 re: Afghanistan and Iraq. Very likely some kind of intervention, but I think the scope and scale would be very different. Does a President Gore oversee an Abu Ghraib?
From Katrina to torture to the Supreme Court to climate to attempting to privatize education and social security, everything the Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz band of villains did was horribly regressive and destructive. Trump has terrible terrible impulses, but he's not as savvy at forcing through a really backwards policy agenda. Bush/Cheney had the advantage of a post 9/11 patriotic boost as well.
From Katrina to torture to the Supreme Court to climate to attempting to privatize education and social security, everything the Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz band of villains did was horribly regressive and destructive. Trump has terrible terrible impulses, but he's not as savvy at forcing through a really backwards policy agenda. Bush/Cheney had the advantage of a post 9/11 patriotic boost as well.
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Maria is basically Katrina except at least Bush felt the decency to be the least bit ashamed about it. Supreme Court? Who boy. There's also western democracy being very much in peril right now and Trump is at best asleep at the wheel. No argument Bush was terrible. I'll say it again: Bush only looks good in comparison to Trump because of how terrible Trump is.
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chrondog wrote:From Katrina to torture to the Supreme Court to climate to attempting to privatize education and social security, everything the Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz band of villains did was horribly regressive and destructive. Trump has terrible terrible impulses, but he's not as savvy at forcing through a really backwards policy agenda. Bush/Cheney had the advantage of a post 9/11 patriotic boost as well.
If you're grading on execution rather than intent, I would leave out the "attempted" examples. I think torture is the only one of those that really sets Bush apart, and its the darkest part of his legacy. All I would say there is that we didn't even know what and how much was going on at this point in the Bush presidency, so its possible Trump's worst behavior isn't even public yet. At this stage, I'm more comfortable rating by intent, by which Trump is much worse than Bush. We can better compare execution after he's gone.
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Duff... wrote:Maria is basically Katrina except at least Bush felt the decency to be the least bit ashamed about it. Supreme Court? Who boy. There's also western democracy being very much in peril right now and Trump is at best asleep at the wheel. No argument Bush was terrible. I'll say it again: Bush only looks good in comparison to Trump because of how terrible Trump is.
Maria point is extremely fair, as that's undoubtedly worse than Katrina but people don't care because brown people. Supreme Court is the result of other factors like retirements and political control of the senate, but it's still bad.
I don't buy that "western democracy" is in peril. That fact that executive power has historically only been checked by "norms" and that our elections are overseen by political bodies and volunteers at the local level who outsource shit to easily hackable technology says more to me that our institutions have always been broken, we're just noticing now.
I certainly don't trust a career intelligence services guy and certified cop like Muller to save us. It's a really stunning indictment of the lack of political imagination by the Democrats that their favorite institution is now the FBI. The FBI ain't gonna save us!
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