Now the difference being is when you say "Fuck the China" or "fuck the Chinese" you can literally be saying that towards the people and not the government.
Since when is "America" or "American" an ethnic group?
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Obama defends his drone strikes in new book
- Thread starter Poetic Injustice
- Start date
Since when is "America" or "American" an ethnic group?
A certain subset of ERA always gets pretty jingoistic when you mention American imperialism and their effects throughout world history. It's kinda gross because it results in lots of people here handwaving US atrocities because they don't see themselves as the "bad guys".
"BUT IF THE US FALLS CHINA WILL TAKE OVER!!!"
That's such a perfect response that reveals everything about someone. You guys who keep capping for America's foreign policy don't give a shit about people in other coutries as long as you get to live a life of luxury at the top.
Here's the thing thought, the USA is already hated even more than China throughout most of the world. For example, people in Latin America legitimately won't give a shit if the US empire crumbles tomorrow and China "takes over". It's not like life could get any worse than it already has. After all, it's not like the Chinese are orchestrating coups in Bolivia right now.
No one actually likes the US after all the things they have done in the last 70 years. Fuck Obama and every other US president.
"BUT IF THE US FALLS CHINA WILL TAKE OVER!!!"
That's such a perfect response that reveals everything about someone. You guys who keep capping for America's foreign policy don't give a shit about people in other coutries as long as you get to live a life of luxury at the top.
Here's the thing thought, the USA is already hated even more than China throughout most of the world. For example, people in Latin America legitimately won't give a shit if the US empire crumbles tomorrow and China "takes over". It's not like life could get any worse than it already has. After all, it's not like the Chinese are orchestrating coups in Bolivia right now.
No one actually likes the US after all the things they have done in the last 70 years. Fuck Obama and every other US president.
I'm perfectly fine with saying "Fuck americans" too, after all your country is a democracy, your governement is elected by the people so yeah it's not like China sorry. Every 4 years you have the opportunity to change your country for the better and what did you do this year ? electing president the VP of the war criminal we're talking about in this thread, and I'm sure he has as much blood in his hands than Obama. Good job Americans ?
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At this point, when you run for president, you're going to have to accept that in this day and age, you're most likely going to be a war criminal. That's what happens when you're in charge of the most powerful military in the world and this country has a war for profit mentality. I could never be president.
Biden was pushing for an Iraq invasion since 1998 apparently. So yup.
Ah yes, poor oppressed America. Not like it's a warmongering empire or anything.
It's not so obvious when we have tons of Chineses and Asians in general getting harassed online and in real lfie, especially after COVID. This doesn't happen with Americans.
Trump is 'legitimizing' hate incidents against Asian Americans: U.N. experts
The experts wrote that “U.S. authorities have utterly failed to take the steps required to detect, monitor, and prevent racist and xenophobic incidents” toward Asian Americans.
www.nbcnews.com
This made me laugh tbh. So it isn't the president's fault because for some reason, his executive power isn't enough to stop the political machinations that pressure him to use his executive power to start a war. But it's the American voters faults for voting for the president that allows this to happen because the president has the power to stop this via his executive power.
Either it's nobody's fault because the president can't stop it (due to political machinations) and therefore the voters' can't stop it for the same reason. Or it's both of their faults.
You chose neither because it's likely you just try to find any possible way to stick up for your tribe (democrats). And then to top it off, you don't like people speaking loudly against these foreign policy matters to complete the chef's kiss.
We can just stop, we really can.
We're gonna start droning Kenya soon. We can choose not to. We can end those wars too.
But the public needs to want it, I think the war on terror has been going for so long that people can't remember a world without them, but it's possible.
I think the war on terror really brought nothing but death and destruction and we made a whole lot of people all over the world hate America.
Yup, like even if you care or value maintaining US hegemony above all else, ending drone strikes is still good policy. It doesn't really provide much benefit to us and destabilizes regions and engenders hatred and distrust with other nations. There really is no upside, even if there was an upside it wouldn't be defensible due to the loss of innocent life, but there is no benefit to us either.
That writing and his persuasive argument is pretty terrible for what I would expect of Obama. It felt like he barely tried, which probably means that he's not really sorry about it at all and feels like he shouldn't need to defend the drone strikes. Given how he treated Bush with kid gloves I'm not surprised.
And it's the other way around in China's backyard, with even socialist Vietnam pushing for stronger relations with the US and allowing our Navy to make port visits to counter China.
U.S. says completes second aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam
The United States has completed its second aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said on Wednesday, as the former foes mark 25 years of normalized diplomatic relations.
www.reuters.com
US, Vietnam ties have never been better
Panegyrics were expressed all around when the United States and Vietnam marked the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations, a remarkable reconciliatory event between the former bitter adversaries.…
asiatimes.com
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Yeah, it's like...the closer you are to China and the further you are from the US it becomes another matter altogetherAnd it's the other way around in China's backyard, with even socialist Vietnam pushing for stronger relations with the US and allowing our Navy to make port visits to counter China.
U.S. says completes second aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam
The United States has completed its second aircraft carrier visit to Vietnam, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said on Wednesday, as the former foes mark 25 years of normalized diplomatic relations.
US, Vietnam ties have never been better
Panegyrics were expressed all around when the United States and Vietnam marked the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations, a remarkable reconciliatory event between the former bitter adversaries.…
It also goes deeper than just Republican vs Democrat. You cannot go against American imperialism and maintain support for other change. It's one thing to fight for universal healthcare, education, or other important issues. It's a totally different story to stymie our military dominance.
Sometimes I don't understand Americans. You're defending drone strikes in foreign soil, but stricter immigration law in your own backyard is not ok? Is that a form of American exceptionalism, because I can't recall other countries that have the same line of thinking.
Americans cared about Vietnam because Americans were dying and the media heavily covered the war. Most Americans are indifferent to drone strikes because it's not really in the public consciousness to begin with, and when it's brought up, the idea of drones fighting instead of soldiers sounds more appealing.
We can, but it took years of mass protests and activism to achieve.
There use to be pretty active resistance to the war on terror around here, to this day the biggest protests I've seen in America were against the Iraq war. But it all pretty much disappeared after the election in 2008 and never really came back.
I hope this change, because I think we're going to keep doing the same shit by inertia otherwise.
The draft too. Don't need that shit anymore, we can just recruit poor and desperate people with promises of education and healthcare.
BLM protests this year were probably the biggest in the country ever in terms of raw numbers but yeah the anti-war movement used to be pretty big in the early 2000's
It's quite logical once you realize America is basically "us vs them" the country
Drone strikes = military industrial complex = jingoism = MERICUH!
Immigrants = not one of us (throw in a huge heap of they're not white racism) = ruining the country
It's hard for me to know for sure, and estimates are always all over the place, but I still think the biggest protest I've seen in the Seattle was in 2003.
But at the very least it was on similar scale.
And they went on for years. Now you're lucky if you get 50 people to show up. Like after Soleimani there was one protest of maybe 500 people, but that was about that.
I guess one of the problems that the US seems to be having is the idea of just... leaving the area.
I mean, I've read that just withdrawing from the Middle East right now is messed up because we caused a mess, and leaving will open up the likelihood the next administration in that area will be hostile to the US.
At this point though, it seems like the question is, are drone strikes / keeping soldiers in that area better or worse than the ramifications of the US just stopping drone strikes and leaving the area to figure out itself?
I guess support of Israel is also complicating in that US presence leaving would leave Israel open to more attacks? Not sure.
I don't envy the POTUS in terms of what decision they should make in the Middle East. Obviously with hindsight we'd go back and not go in at all, but now cleaning up the mess... no idea what to do.
It's like an object in motion requires way too much energy to stop or shift focus. Ours is so heavy, bloated and has literally billions of dollars worth of contracts assigned to major defense industries. Then it has 100% of Republicans + I would say 80% of Democrats fully unconditionally supporting it. There is so much momentum that no one would dare come in the way. I think Eisenhower warned us of this very problem we're in. US can walk out of all of hotspots tomorrow and nothing would be lost. But you have the defense industry plus these generals who see the whole problem as an all or nothing game (just like Vietnam), and don't know when to call it quits. When civilian president comes in, they scare them about all of these "problems" that need "solving".
Biden and Harris will no doubt continue this trend unfortunately. But yeah the care and thought Obama gave to Americans, he didn't give a fraction of it to the countries where he was ok with drone strikes. The day after the first wrongly bombed wedding, he could have said "fuck this shit, too much casualties, too risky." and walked away. But he did not and continued with the nonsense. And yeah, blank check to Israel is also a big factor.
Being the United States President is always a degrees of grey. You inherit messes, agreements, etc from years to decades ago that are to be upheld to some degree. I wouldn't doubt if many Presidents try to justify their actions. Why wouldn't they? They're usually put in impossible situations.
Something needs to change on a fundamental level on a global scale. Every President past, present, and future is going to be a war criminal. It's going to be very hard for them not to.
Something needs to change on a fundamental level on a global scale. Every President past, present, and future is going to be a war criminal. It's going to be very hard for them not to.
Under our current corrupt system of shareholder capitalism, yes. You cannot be morally and ethically consistent and operate under the status quo. It takes a real activist to make institutional change in America, and unfortunately Obama was very complicit.
Eh, more than just that, how can institutional change be actually brought about doesn't seem to have clear answers.
It's not just this site. You can track a growing, prevalent, and tangible anti-US sentiment over the past 50 years. Part of it is probably because the rest of the world has come to a consensus when it comes to "fuck America" type sentiments. America has proven itself to be a generally vile nation, and every time they have a chance to be better, they seem to double down on atrocities. It's not a surprise that the world has run out of patience with the US, and I don't think it's a nation worth defending At this point.
I mean it would help if Dems didn't expand surveillance state and war powers
This is accurate, but I think it can be phrased even more succinctly:
"We're the good guys, and us in particular."
Immigrants would "ruin that"
And other countries "need to be more like us"
Ultimately Obama wasn't enough of an advocate for change, even if he was stonewalled by the Senate the whole time. He tried in some areas but he was complicit in many others. Like drone strikes, keeping us in the Middle East way past our expiration date, the failure to close Guantanamo Bay, the failure to reign in megacorps from exploding out of control, etc.
Strong leadership at the top can inspire down-ballot races and a shift in public sentiment. People never thought a Democratic Socialist like AOC could win a House seat over a 20-year career politician but she proved it was possible. People are unbelievably tired of Congress, and many in America would be happy with European-style policies like Medicare for All if it meant taxing the ultra-rich and corporations a bit more, yet they don't sufficiently challenge the institutions that are responsible for it.
Like why wasn't Bernie Sanders our Democratic candidate over Biden? Because the DNC tried their absolute hardest to ensure a corporatist like Biden was at the helm. And Obama only encouraged it.
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Dude went against Congress and DOJ to intervene in Syria and Libya respectively and even he admits Libya was a collosal fuck up
The worst thing about Trump is that he not only stalled American politics for 4 years, but also set us back in progressive ideology tenfold.
By the global populance, Biden will be seen as "progressive" for his whole tenure only because Trump was just so backwards. We're essentially in 2008 again.
By the global populance, Biden will be seen as "progressive" for his whole tenure only because Trump was just so backwards. We're essentially in 2008 again.
Obama in general was disastrous on foreign policy. Syria was a prime example. Completely failed to handle Assad diplomatically and was unwilling to bring together a coalition to stop him, leading to hundreds of thousands of civilians killed and untolds raped and tortured by Assad's forces. And Libya, after the bombs were done being dropped Obama primarily left the area, leaving a fractured nation in a power vacuum, which has led to ongoing civil conflicts and no real peace or stable government years later.
His one big foreign policy win -- the Iranian nuclear deal -- was primarily architected and led across the finish line by John Kerry.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but nothing about what you said about progressives is related to the discussion/issues about us being in the Middle East, at least from the way you've written.
I was speaking about institutional change as about what is going on in the Middle East with America involved, drone strikes, war etc. I'm not seeing what more taxation, M4A, or progressive politics has to do with closing Guan Bay, getting us out of the Middle East conflict, and the general issue with American presidents being war criminals, honestly. Like, it really isn't as simple as just "okay we'll pull out all troops and just leave them alone," even if we wish it could be like that. Even if in the US there was magically no more being beholden to corporations profiting off war, we still have to consider what it means to do that. Right now, the question of how we'll get the US to be less beholden to corporations profiting off war still stands. Taxing rich people more so we have better healthcare doesn't make those defense and military corporations any less likely to exist, which, from what I understand, is part of the reason why there's so little incentive to push to remove us from these wars.
Every single time we tried to regime change an aXiS oF eViL country by bombing them into freedom it failed in horrific ways.
I think the problem is less that we didn't execute it right, but that this whole approach is just bad.
We abandoned the idea of even trying diplomacy.
You wanted examples of how institutional change can be brought about in American society. I said Obama wasn't enough of an advocate for change which was ultimately his downfall. His lack of conviction manifested across his entire political ideology.
I brought up the example of AOC's success to demonstrate how a strong conviction can lead to shifts in public opinion in America. I wasn't trying to conflate social and military policies together.
Obama tried to operate in the norms he inherited. But that doesn't have to be the case for a leader. A leader can tirelessly demand and push for change every single day, like MLK. They gain a lot of enemies, but they also gain a lot of followers and maybe even inspire a movement. If Obama worked his hardest to push progressive messaging and work with progressive candidates to primary career politicians, we could begin a greater movement to rally Americans (like the non-voting youth) behind making their lives better off than before.
Obama accepted the military industrial complex, giant megacorps, growing homelessness, growing inequality, runaway student loan debt bankrupting Americans, etc., as givens in this country that could be tweaked but not radically overhauled. Like the whole existence of Obamacare. Yeah great, it stopped people from getting denied for pre-existing conditions. But it did nothing to overhaul the broken health insurance industry where one emergency room visit bankrupts you, decent healthcare costs 30% of your tiny paycheck, and vials of insulin cost thousands of dollars a year. Presidents have the ability to inspire revolutions.
Speaking in extreme generalities here, obviously. Don't have the time or willpower to elaborate in specifics.
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The problem here goes well beyond Obama.
The US has been stuck in gruesome, senseless quagmire wars since the end of WW2. This is a broader phenomenon than just one president looking to reach across the aisle, or get reelected for another 4 years (but it has been that, too).
This is the country we've been for almost 100 years now.
Probably any sitting president at the time would have done the same. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because we didn't get to this level of dysfunction and malice by the will of one or two presidents alone.
I am thinking about what it means to be "anti war", because it turns out just being a Democrat, or a progressive, or a leftist, just doesn't cut it. We can't rely on passive opposition to the reality of a $700b/year military budget. We cant accept a promise that a leader wont 'go to war' at face value, when this destruction is now wrought through proxies, with drones, just sign this paper and we'll blow up another nameless town. We have it down to cold hard bureaucracy now.
Let me reiterate that Obama deserves criticism and disappointment here. But let's not miss the forest for the trees, either. This country's enormous military apparatus and bottomless mission to destroy others needs to be dismantled.
The US has been stuck in gruesome, senseless quagmire wars since the end of WW2. This is a broader phenomenon than just one president looking to reach across the aisle, or get reelected for another 4 years (but it has been that, too).
This is the country we've been for almost 100 years now.
Probably any sitting president at the time would have done the same. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because we didn't get to this level of dysfunction and malice by the will of one or two presidents alone.
I am thinking about what it means to be "anti war", because it turns out just being a Democrat, or a progressive, or a leftist, just doesn't cut it. We can't rely on passive opposition to the reality of a $700b/year military budget. We cant accept a promise that a leader wont 'go to war' at face value, when this destruction is now wrought through proxies, with drones, just sign this paper and we'll blow up another nameless town. We have it down to cold hard bureaucracy now.
Let me reiterate that Obama deserves criticism and disappointment here. But let's not miss the forest for the trees, either. This country's enormous military apparatus and bottomless mission to destroy others needs to be dismantled.
We aren't smart sorry. Individually we have some of the most brilliant minds in the world. As a whole america is a mouth breathing cave troll. The electoral college really contributes to that.
After 9/11 you'll never get half of america to care about drone strikes bc they think we now have license to do whatever we want as long as it's "fighting terrorism".
fuck this guy
fuck usa imperisliam
if the USA and the west hadn't fucked up the middle east so much in the 20th century with propping wicked regimes and installing awful regimes, this wont have happened
or the bullshit wars like Iraq and more
FUCK HIM
fuck usa imperisliam
if the USA and the west hadn't fucked up the middle east so much in the 20th century with propping wicked regimes and installing awful regimes, this wont have happened
or the bullshit wars like Iraq and more
FUCK HIM
You're not wrong but you're also being too kind to the man tbh.
Obama didnt have to accept the status quo because he loves it. Civility, decorum, everybody holding hands across the aisle to fuck over the poor and foreign nations in a dignified and presidential manner, he can't get enough of it.
Man campaigned on hope and change and then proceeded to double down on everything that led to the disillusionment of the people that were inspired by him.
There is more than enough evidence to say the man was a complete fraud and you still have people stanning for him because they don't want to feel bad for celebrating in 2008.
It's OK to admit our heroes are actually shit, it's part of growing up.
So in this spirit of conciliation I invite everybody to hold the hand of the person next to them as we say with one voice:
"Fuck Obama"
Fuck Obama
Fuck USA imperialism
Fuck USA military industrial complex
Fuck anti-intersectionalism
Fuck USA imperialism
Fuck USA military industrial complex
Fuck anti-intersectionalism