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

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The Chosen One

The Chosen One

Member
I wish someone would point out that while Trump has been going on and on about NFL supposedly disrespecting the flag and soldiers by taking a knee, yet he as President, can't be bothered or remember to honor the soldiers who just lost their lives under his command.

An NFL player has never caused the deaths nor are reasonable for the lives of US soldiers. Trump as President is and he's actually the one person who should be held accountable for honoring and understanding the sacrifice of US solders. Because his indifference could lead to more solider's lives lost.
 
K

kirblar

Member
whyamihere said:
You can find someone better than the 73 year old man who came into office with a state with a 5.2% unemployment rate and left with a 9.4% unemployment rate.
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You could just stop at "73 year old man". Good god we don't need to be contesting another special election in 2022.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
whyamihere said:
You can find someone better than the 73 year old man who came into office with a state with a 5.2% unemployment rate and left with a 9.4% unemployment rate.
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Who though?

Mackler seems like ok wave insurance I guess but really any Democrat in Tennessee is going to have a name recognition and credibility problem starting out, except Bredesen.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
Aaron Strife said:
Who though?

Mackler seems like ok wave insurance I guess but really any Democrat in Tennessee is going to have a name recognition and credibility problem starting out, except Bredesen.
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Bredesen already lost his credibility. I do not see a world in which he wins. You might as well try with someone lesser known but can't be painted as having caused the worst job losses in the state in the past two decades.
 
A

Abinash117

Member
Valhelm said:
Right. Tankies who think Russia is benevolent are misguided and dangerous, but Russia is a substantially less dangerous imperialist threat than the goold ol' USA. Refusing to acknowledge American aggression is tacitly pro-imperialist, and the behavior of our current administration has made the human toll of our primacy sickeningly clear.

Who has Putin threatened to nuke? How many countries is he bombing right now? Movement toward an end to our own international abuses needs to be part of any progressive platform, and refusing to deescalate because it gives Russia an opportunity is a fundamentally reactionary and imperialist stance.



Please, please, please read about these conflicts before posting. The US and Al-Qaeda are tacitly allied in most of the Middle East, because Al-Qaeda works closely with out Saudi Allies and because we support their brutal sectarianism as long as it weakens Iran's influence. Similarly in Syria, we have directly provided aid to Al-Qaeda affiliates because our government is more willing to tolerate a brutal theocracy than a secular government that's friendly with Iran and Russia.
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US did support rebel groups, but did remember than about the US backing those mentioned. I'm fully certain that Ahrar al-sham was backed by Turkey. Also I wouldn't call them affiliates they fought with them to fight the government and now they are rivals that activity fight each other.
 
E

eBay Huckster

Member
kirblar said:
You could just stop at "73 year old man". Good god we don't need to be contesting another special election in 2022.
Click to expand...

not that I'm in support of running Bredesen but there wouldn't be a special election in 2022, as far as I can tell

the Speaker of the TN Senate would just rise to the office of Governor and contest the (general) election from there
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
whyamihere said:
Bredesen already lost his credibility. I do not see a world in which he wins. You might as well try with someone lesser known but can't be painted as having caused the worst job losses in the state in the past two decades.
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Sorry, agree to disagree on this one. I don’t see how a Some Dude is preferable to a former governor, even if you have a point about the inevitable attack lines.

FWIW I don’t think PG Sittenfeld would have beaten Rob Portman either
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
pigeon said:
Russia’s literally mounting a global campaign to advance white nationalism and fascism in democratic governments across the world.

What exactly would qualify as a “global supervillain” to you?
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They're supporting fascism and white supremacy here, we're supporting fascism and white supremacy there. Within Russia itself, opposition candidate Alexei Navalny talks about democracy and anti-corruption while supporting a viciously anti-immigrant ethnonationalist platform that makes him even more regressive than Putin. Yet because we'd like to undermine Putin's government, many American politicians love the guy.

Imperialism is bad everywhere, and this process often puts us in bed with some truly monstrous individuals in our crusade to entrench American influence. Just because Russia does horrible things doesn't mean it's alright for us to mimic their behavior. Our condemnation of Putin will seem a lot more authentic if the US actually has a moral high-ground over him.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
kirblar said:
I'm pretty sure Ukraine would beg to differ on this!
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To be brutally frank, Valheim’s foreign policy positions are consistently, in every discussion, indistinguishable from a tankie’s. He and others like him are the reason the Young Labor and DSA take the positions they do.

However, it isn’t really his fault, it’s the Boomers. Yet another long-term consequence of progressive support for the Iraq War is the complete disintegration of a coherent rationale for the appropriate use of force on the left.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
Aaron Strife said:
Sorry, agree to disagree on this one. I don’t see how a Some Dude is preferable to a former governor, even if you have a point about the inevitable attack lines.
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You don't run Some Dude, you run someone like Andy Berke who is from an area that could swing towards Democrats and is a strong rising star in the party. I still don't think he wins, but he has a better shot than Bredesen.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
kirblar said:
You could just stop at "73 year old man". Good god we don't need to be contesting another special election in 2022.
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I’m tired of this age bashing. I don’t care if the person is in their 90s—if they can win in 2018, run them. Get everything done you can right away and deal with any leave of office when it comes. Just nominate people who can win.

I don’t think this guy can win, but age shouldn’t be an issue at this point.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Bonen no Max'd said:
when people say things like "Russia is the world's supervillain" I'd like to remind them that the United States is currently in a war with Yemen that has killed over ten thousand civilians and that this all has happened under the "good president".
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It's 4,983 civilians killed and 8,553 injured. The US and its allies are responsible for 1,244 of those deaths and 2,570 of those injuries.

http://www.ohchr.org/SiteCollectionImages/Countries/YE/2017/Infographic3YemenReport2017.jpg

It does bring up questions about how far you take part in the side of allies that are doing bad stuff, just less bad than the opposing side, but I don't think that makes the US a supervillain.
 
K

kirblar

Member
pigeon said:
To be brutally frank, Valheim's foreign policy positions are consistently, in every discussion, indistinguishable from a tankie's. He and others like him are the reason the Young Labor and DSA take the positions they do.

However, it isn't really his fault, it's the Boomers. Yet another long-term consequence of progressive support for the Iraq War is the complete disintegration of a coherent rationale for the appropriate use of force on the left.
Click to expand...
I don't really like "blaming boomers instead of the tankies" for the same reason I wouldn't like "blaming boomers instead of the alt-righters" when it comes to supporting terrible positions.

I'm a center-left guy and opposed the Iraq war completely in the run-up as everything about it being a pre-ordained GOP plan from blueballed ex-Bush I officials taking advantage of 9/11 was blatantly obvious. (I supported the Afghanistan invasion wholeheartedly.)
eBay Huckster said:
not that I'm in support of running Bredesen but there wouldn't be a special election in 2022, as far as I can tell

the Speaker of the TN Senate would just rise to the office of Governor and contest the (general) election from there
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The problem with running a senior citizen for a long-term position is that they have an unfortunate habit of unexpectedly dying on you. This is one of those known unknowns we really should be trying to avoid whenever possible.
Plinko said:
I'm tired of this age bashing. I don't care if the person is in their 90s—if they can win in 2018, run them. Get everything done you can right away and deal with any leave of office when it comes. Just nominate people who can win.

I don't think this guy can win, but age shouldn't be an issue at this point.
Click to expand...
It's not bashing if there are real issues with running older candidates!

Same reason it's not homophobic to put in restrictions on blood donations for sexually active gay men.
 
A

Abinash117

Member
Valhelm said:
They're supporting fascism and white supremacy here, we're supporting fascism and white supremacy there. Within Russia itself, opposition candidate Alexei Navalny talks about democracy and anti-corruption while supporting a viciously anti-immigrant ethnonationalist platform that makes him even more regressive than Putin. Yet because we'd like to undermine Putin's government, many American politicians love the guy.

Imperialism is bad everywhere, and this process often puts us in bed with some truly monstrous individuals in our crusade to entrench American influence. Just because Russia does horrible things doesn't mean it's alright for us to mimic their behavior. Our condemnation of Putin will seem a lot more authentic if the US actually has a moral high-ground over him.
Click to expand...

What is the aim of having a moral high ground? Would it make other nations do anything different to counter Russia? Would it make the people more opposed the Russia government's actions?
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Bonen no Max'd said:
when people say things like "Russia is the world's supervillain" I'd like to remind them that the United States is currently in a war with Yemen that has killed over ten thousand civilians and that this all has happened under the "good president".
Click to expand...

Shit I didn't know Glen Greenwald was a PoliGafer
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
whyamihere said:
You don't run Some Dude, you run someone like Andy Berke who is from an area that could swing towards Democrats and is a strong rising star in the party. I still don't think he wins, but he has a better shot than Bredesen.
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Ok, well that would be a great idea then. If Berke gets in I’m all for that. Just saying that between Bredesen and the actual candidates thus far, I’d roll the dice on Phil.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
pigeon said:
To be brutally frank, Valheim’s foreign policy positions are consistently, in every discussion, indistinguishable from a tankie’s. He and others like him are the reason the Young Labor and DSA take the positions they do.

However, it isn’t really his fault, it’s the Boomers. Yet another long-term consequence of progressive support for the Iraq War is the complete disintegration of a coherent rationale for the appropriate use of force on the left.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call myself a tankie because I don't think I'm very authoritarian, but the US is an imperialist country and we as progressives need to change that. Time after time we've tried to crush, co-opt, or undermine every movement of people standing up for themselves, especially if it's in a third world country that hosts lots of American property.

If we abandoned our primacy, and instead had a genuinely egalitarian geopol landscape dominated by international cooperation instead of national might, folks like the Houthis or the government of Bolivia wouldn't feel coerced to saddle up to Putin to protect themselves. Progressive or anti-imperial groups that work with Russia universally fear his regressive ideology, and often have better stances on white supremacy and LGBT liberation than Western liberals, but have been led to believe that accepting Russian support is necessary for their own survival.

We can't support progressive policies at home and fascist policies abroad. This is probably the biggest contradiction of liberalism, and this contradiction goes back as far as Cromwell, who overthrew the monarchy but funded his new government through the plunder and genocide of Ireland. For the past three hundred years, liberals who championed genuinely progressive causes at home have still co-signed or participated in the abuse of colonial territories and subjugated peoples.

Authentic compassion and humanism means recognizing that lives of foreigners aren't less valuable than our own. The Democrats have a really long way to go on that front.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
an unfortunate last name

MT-Sen: On Saturday, recently retired Yellowstone County District Court Judge Russell Fagg announced he would indeed join the primary for the Republican nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester next year.
Click to expand...
 
C

chadskin

Member
Valhelm said:
Right. Tankies who think Russia is benevolent are misguided and dangerous, but Russia is a substantially less dangerous imperialist threat than the goold ol' USA. Refusing to acknowledge American aggression is tacitly pro-imperialist, and the behavior of our current administration has made the human toll of our primacy sickeningly clear.

Who has Putin threatened to nuke? How many countries is he bombing right now? Movement toward an end to our own international abuses needs to be part of any progressive platform, and refusing to deescalate because it gives Russia an opportunity is a fundamentally reactionary and imperialist stance.
Click to expand...

Russia claims a privileged sphere of influence in its neighborhood, the so-called Near Abroad. It doesn't get more imperialist than this!

Valhelm said:
Please, please, please read about these conflicts before posting. The US and Al-Qaeda are tacitly allied in most of the Middle East, because Al-Qaeda works closely with out Saudi Allies and because we support their brutal sectarianism as long as it weakens Iran's influence. Similarly in Syria, we have directly provided aid to Al-Qaeda affiliates because our government is more willing to tolerate a brutal theocracy than a secular government that's friendly with Iran and Russia.
Click to expand...

Michael Hughes? As in, Michael Hughes, now Senior Editor for Sputnik/RIA Novosti Newswire services? Ok. Regardless, there's still a fine difference between the US "directly provided aid to Al-Qaeda affiliates" and "Syrian rebel groups [who are] 'comingling' with Al Qaeda-affiliated Salafist jihadists". Did US-backed rebel groups fight alongside Al-Qaeda affiliated groups against Syrian government forces? Yes. Did the US provide aid to these groups directly? There's no evidence.

Also, "our government is more willing to tolerate a brutal theocracy than a secular government that's friendly with Iran and Russia" is a nice way to sweep the brutality of the Assad regime under the rug!

Valhelm said:
They're supporting fascism and white supremacy here, we're supporting fascism and white supremacy there. Within Russia itself, opposition candidate Alexei Navalny talks about democracy and anti-corruption while supporting a viciously anti-immigrant ethnonationalist platform that makes him even more regressive than Putin. Yet because we'd like to undermine Putin's government, many American politicians love the guy.
Click to expand...

The US didn't support fascists and white supremacists in Ukraine but keep peddling this talking point over and over again.
 
T

Teggy

Member
Dude...are..are you ok?

DMSE8jSW4AIWW9w
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Edit:

Oh my gooooooooooooooooddddddddd

DMSH53fU8AAwY1n
Click to expand...
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
Rosen raised 1.2 mil in Q3 for NV Sen. Decent, not amazing, not terrible. Heard she might have some fundraising trouble from large donors so this is a bit of a relief to see.
 
K

kirblar

Member
whyamihere said:
Uh.
Click to expand...
It's not. Our population has way higher HIV rates than the general population because of the ways in which it's easier to transmit. It's a safety precaution designed to weed out people who might be infected and not know it. That's fine. Not everyone "knows their status", and that's the person you're worried about. Given updates in testing methods and efficacy, being able to pick up signs within a few weeks, it's very likely the current one-year sit out period is almost certainly too long though, and should be reduced to something like a few months.
 
W

whyamihere

Banned
kirblar said:
It's not. Our population has way higher HIV rates than the general population because of the ways in which it's easier to transmit. It's a safety precaution designed to weed out people who might be infected and not know it. That's fine. Not everyone "knows their status", and that's the person you're worried about. Given updates in testing methods and efficacy, being able to pick up signs within a few weeks, it's very likely the current one-year sit out period is almost certainly too long though, and should be reduced to something like a few months.
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No.
 
P

PBY

Banned
kirblar said:
It's not. Our population has way higher HIV rates than the general population because of the ways in which it's easier to transmit. It's a safety precaution designed to weed out people who might be infected and not know it. That's fine. Not everyone "knows their status", and that's the person you're worried about. Given updates in testing methods and efficacy, being able to pick up signs within a few weeks, it's very likely the current one-year sit out period is almost certainly too long though, and should be reduced to something like a few months.
Click to expand...

Yeah, no. Its also definitely not fucking "fine".
 
M

Mark Andrew

Member
This time next year: Great comments by President Trump on the nuclear wasteland formerly know as Asia. His grasp on foreign policy is very deep and growing.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
chadskin said:
The US didn't support fascists and white supremacists in Ukraine but keep peddling this talking point over and over again.
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Nope, that's a lie.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/u...es-kiev-government-including-far-right-n66061
http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/03/18/yes-there-are-bad-guys-in-the-ukrainian-government/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-america-training-neonazis-in-ukraine
https://www.thenation.com/article/c...ng-neo-nazis-from-its-year-end-spending-bill/
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/US-lifts-ban-on-funding-neo-Nazi-Ukrainian-militia-441884

Our support for Neo Nazis does not at all justify Russian aggression, but it reminds us that we are both imperialist countries willing to work with basically anybody to cement our influence.
 
B

BanGy.nz

Banned
kirblar said:
It's not. Our population has way higher HIV rates than the general population because of the ways in which it's easier to transmit. It's a safety precaution designed to weed out people who might be infected and not know it. That's fine. Not everyone "knows their status", and that's the person you're worried about. Given updates in testing methods and efficacy, being able to pick up signs within a few weeks, it's very likely the current one-year sit out period is almost certainly too long though, and should be reduced to something like a few months.
Click to expand...
Stop.
 
V

Valhelm

contribute something
kirblar said:
It's not. Our population has way higher HIV rates than the general population because of the ways in which it's easier to transmit. It's a safety precaution designed to weed out people who might be infected and not know it. That's fine. Not everyone "knows their status", and that's the person you're worried about. Given updates in testing methods and efficacy, being able to pick up signs within a few weeks, it's very likely the current one-year sit out period is almost certainly too long though, and should be reduced to something like a few months.
Click to expand...

Nah the policy is totally unnecessary. I don't think it exists except to dehumanize and single-out gay men.
 
V

VendettaRed07

Member
Kevinroc said:
Fox News' Juan Williams: Trump is becoming a failed president

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/355569-juan-williams-trump-is-becoming-a-failed-president
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Trump does far more superficial nonsense to maintain his base support than any other republican in history; but

I can’t help but imagine if they don’t manage to get tax reform happening, healthcare still doesn’t have a solution, there is no wall built and many other promises he made despite single party control there won’t be a similar bottoming out of support. It’s just going to take a lot of time.

I think it will take longer than usual because of his “outsider” appeals and directs blame towards unpopular congress that no one likes will keep people backing him. But I can’t imagine that lasts forever. He needs to deliver major legislation or the republican support for him will really start to be depressed and even fox and others will start being more openly critical and frustrated given what a crazy opportunity they have now because who knows when they next time they’ll have single party control again.
 
B

Box of Kittens

Banned
chadskin said:
The US didn't support fascists and white supremacists in Ukraine but keep peddling this talking point over and over again.
Click to expand...

Russia is undertaking a deliberate campaign specifically to push fascism and white supremacy in both the US and Europe. A favorite talking point of Russian propaganda is that all opposition to Russia in Ukraine comes from Neo-Nazis. Both sides guys amirite?

Critically examining US foreign policy and in particular a lot of assumptions that have been held on both sides of the aisle for a long time is a good thing and we need to do more of it. Being naive about the threat Russia poses to democracy is a bad thing.
 
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