he is in the larger American conversation
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:16 (twelve years ago) link
I think those 6 future child terrorists we blew up this weekend prrrrrrrrrrobably would disagree.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, May 29, 2012 12:12 PM (1 minute ago)
Oh, but you had me at "the inconvenience at the airport is going to be such a pain!"
― Trey Imaginary Songz (WmC), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:17 (twelve years ago) link
I try to have a wide-ranging list of complaints, WmC, it's populist
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
I don't think event his is true. dude is closer to libertarian/Ron Paul axis
― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
B.M. gave a million dollars to Obama 2012 a few weeks back
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:20 (twelve years ago) link
lol I didn't know Maher was a PETA board member
that may explain why they kill all those animals
― that is a weird thing to bring up over lean cuisine (DJP), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:21 (twelve years ago) link
only with regards to weed/lager scale wars. he's deffo for the government upping spending on social welfare programs. but really, he's definitely perceived by most as a leftist, which was my original point (how much of this drone/anti-terrorism stuff is in the mainstream 'leftist'/dem conversation).
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
the liberal internet may grouse or just ignore him but bill maher is absolutely on "team liberal US"
― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:23 (twelve years ago) link
Murder by drone is never discussed by the Cokie crowd.
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:24 (twelve years ago) link
from about 2:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXY8Mr5BhNk
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
anyway, i think it's telling that Obama gets criticized by the Right for stomping all over the constitution, but never for the times when he actually does, like this with all this Infinite Detention/Drone Warfare/Killing Our Citizens shit. they don't want to highlight it because they agree with all of that. I'll bet an awful lot of Democrats do as well. Democracy though...what are ya gonna do? Still better than the guy who thinks that "job-creators" are taxed too much.
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:31 (twelve years ago) link
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TEr9pdCepMo/T8PpOnmhSYI/AAAAAAAAD_0/jRpId0qy0z4/s400/TMW2012-05-30colorKOS.png
― Brony! Broni! Broné! (Phil D.), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
Still better than the guy who thinks that "job-creators" are taxed too much.
don't be so sure that Obama doesn't think so, too. some of his "surrogates" appear to.
― Boris Kutyurkokhov (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:44 (twelve years ago) link
He's not a socialist into total wealth redistribution or anything, but raising the taxes on those over 250,000 has been his thing for a while now, and even Pelosi is turning on him for it.
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:46 (twelve years ago) link
lol u believe campaign "promises."
(sorry, don't mean to be snarky ... but i've seen enough of Change We Can Believe In in action to know better than to believe much of what he says on the campaign trail.)
― Boris Kutyurkokhov (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:48 (twelve years ago) link
i can't wait until other countries develop their own fleet of drones and then we can just have drone battles in the sky!
yaaaaay 21st century!
― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:50 (twelve years ago) link
I know Obama is a centrist, and I know he's failed to get anything legislatively across along the lines of increasing taxes on the rich - and I'd argue that on that issue he just can't get shit through congress, not that he doesn't believe in the idea - but if you think he and Romney have the same ideological view and, by extension, hopeful legislative agenda on the economy then i don't know what you're seeing. He ignored Simpson-Bowles, after all, and he's getting a lot of shit for it.
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link
I'm not sure which will happen sooner, the end of the Bush tax cuts or those 'mandatory' reductions in the Pentagon budget.
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:56 (twelve years ago) link
i believe that the Congressional Dems have become even more useless on increasing taxes on the rich than Obama, esp. after citizens united -- after all, they were the ones who punted the issue to Obama in 2010. and House members need to get elected every 2 years (as opposed to any President, who only needs to shake the money tree once every 4 years.)
― Boris Kutyurkokhov (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 17:59 (twelve years ago) link
idk man, as i understand it every single elected pol spends about 75% of life shaking the money tree constantly
― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:00 (twelve years ago) link
lol the House on that mandatory reductions btw.
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
GG connects more dots...
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/29/obama_the_warrior/singleton/
and links to this Foreign Policy piece: "Ignore what the candidates say they'll do differently on foreign policy. They're basically the same man."
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/23/barack_oromney
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
"Terror Tuesdays" in the Oval Office, w/ Axelrod slicing the baloney
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:16 (twelve years ago) link
I have no idea how anyone has endured Maher's puerile dismissals of red states, malls, and suburbia all these years.
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
he's a good moderator and there are no commercials
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
as for the rest, i mean, i can stay inside and hear it from bill maher or i can go outside and hear it from every single person i know
their timing's worse
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:22 (twelve years ago) link
i'm lying of course i can't afford hbo
only talk show i've ever actively wanted to watch, tho
― a hauntingly unemployed american (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:23 (twelve years ago) link
"Ignore what the candidates say they'll do differently on foreign policy. They're basically the same man."
lol
this is being too kind, don't forget the sexism and the racism!
― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:25 (twelve years ago) link
yeah but Krugman was on
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:36 (twelve years ago) link
guys guys
http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/screen_shot_2012-05-29_at_12.38.52_pm.png
― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago) link
I live three blocks from the former Jose Canseco Boulevard!
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:51 (twelve years ago) link
what is it now, West Anabolia?
― goole, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 18:52 (twelve years ago) link
smaller scale than all this stuff, but wtf North Carolina: http://io9.com/5914378/north-carolina-considers-outlawing-accurate-predictions-of-sea-level-rise?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
― Fas Ro Duh (Gukbe), Thursday, 31 May 2012 03:02 (twelve years ago) link
*facepalm*
― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Thursday, 31 May 2012 13:29 (twelve years ago) link
i mean, irl facepalm.
Meanwhile in Florida:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/florida-gop-takes-voter-supression-to-a-brazen-new-extreme-20120530
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 May 2012 13:50 (twelve years ago) link
We're aware of it. God bless Rick Scott.
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2012/05/58-percent-of-voters-targeted-in-noncitizen-hunt-are-hispanic-whites-gop-least-likely-to-face-purge.html
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 31 May 2012 13:53 (twelve years ago) link
So if George Will's claims are to be believed, the Citizen's United decision has mostly helped really rich people use their free speech (not corporations use theirs), and thus, libs should quit complaining.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/montana-attempts-to-buck-the-supreme-court-on-citizens-united/2012/05/30/gJQA4DCi2U_story.html
Through March 31, the eight leading super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidates received contributions totaling $96,410,614. Of this, $83,220,167 (86.32 percent) came from individuals, only $13,190,447 (13.68 percent) from corporations, and only 0.81 percent from public companies. McConnell says, “Not a single one of the Fortune 100 companies has contributed a cent” to any of the eight super PACS. These facts refute such prophesied nightmares as The Post’s fear that corporate money “may now overwhelm” individuals’ contributions.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 May 2012 20:45 (twelve years ago) link
Citizens United ...grammar correction
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 31 May 2012 20:46 (twelve years ago) link
rule by ludicrously rich owners of corporations is preferable to rule by corporations dontchaknow
― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 31 May 2012 20:53 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that's a distinction slight enough as to be entirely meaningless, isn't it?
― Sisig Steve (stevie), Friday, 1 June 2012 04:31 (twelve years ago) link
corporations are people, my friend
― mookieproof, Friday, 1 June 2012 04:33 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/05/the-presidents-kill-list.html
reposting this short piece schlump posted in the sociopath thread, so everyone gets a chance to read it. davidson's really great; her judgements somehow don't feel like moralizing, which is difficult to do with an issue like this
― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Friday, 1 June 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
yeah she writes so well. & so openly, like she's giving you something to think over rather than telling you what to think. have gotta read the full times piece. i don't have fully formed thoughts on this yet & i'm kinda hesitant to jump in before that, but i do find it so hard to think about this stuff. there's a great piece in the new harper's, which is extracts from oral testimony given by the families of victims of a drone strike, i think in pakistan maybe a year ago, thirty or so people having been killed while attending a ceremonial community meeting. & you read it & it's horrifying, but also part of what's horrifying about it would be horrifying of any account of ""collateral damage"", whatever the means of attack - the issue of automation, & of removing killing from human consequences, is another strand of it. there is a weirdly mathematical take on afghanistan in a sebastian junger interview that stuck in my head since i read it:
Will history judge Afghanistan a worthwhile war?For me, the criterion is whether it increases or decreases human suffering. We killed bin Laden and dismantled al-Qaida, which are two good things, and we brought civilian casualties down from 400,000 in the 90s to around 10,000 in the decade that Nato's been there. If we pull out of Afghanistan in a way that doesn't precipitate a slide back into civil war – not that it would be perfect – then history should judge it a success.
For me, the criterion is whether it increases or decreases human suffering. We killed bin Laden and dismantled al-Qaida, which are two good things, and we brought civilian casualties down from 400,000 in the 90s to around 10,000 in the decade that Nato's been there. If we pull out of Afghanistan in a way that doesn't precipitate a slide back into civil war – not that it would be perfect – then history should judge it a success.
& so it follows, according to this metric (obviously with like a zillion caveats, like that deaths were projected to continue at the same rate), that fewer overall deaths would make for it a reduction in total suffering & so a success. "success" &c. but do you get to make that choice? davidson's point about envisaging the power in the hands of a functionary or someone we don't have such an imaginary-friend hard-on for is great. the drift away from oversight & public discussion is so scary.
― blossom smulch (schlump), Friday, 1 June 2012 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
oh man i'm so behind on harper's
― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Friday, 1 June 2012 15:51 (twelve years ago) link
the article's the bomb
― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:07 (twelve years ago) link
more than anything this shit reminds me of Nixon/Kissinger's expanded bombing campaigns, only made even creepier/more disturbing by the element of specificity involved
― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
it's not like the Afghans didn't get their hair mussed!
― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:15 (twelve years ago) link
― twittering spinster (k3vin k.), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:51 (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah i don't even read harper's really but i've found i feel better about being able to check it if i don't try for the long eight page articles about inner-city [something]/histories of american attitudes/w/e, but if i just read, is it findings? it's so interesting. this month there's this great, paragraph-long excerpt from a police report on that whole escaped-zoo-animals thing, which happened in ohio sometime. or a couple months back there was this haunting precis of a school trip to a morgue.
gonna go wiki expanded bombings, is this cambodia or am i confused
― blossom smulch (schlump), Friday, 1 June 2012 16:21 (twelve years ago) link