The All things Political Topic - The Night never knew that its end was fleet.

[Gorth]

11 hours ago, Achilles said:

It's not about the child, it's about forcing mom to live with the consequences of her actions. I don't actually care whether she makes it or not, I just want to see her sleeping in the bed she made.

Let's just say, I don't subscribe to that "just world" theory one bit. The world is inherently unfair and unreasonable and I would consider it everybody's responsibility to try to mitigate the excesses.

So you're saying, it's effectively victim blaming going on? Bear in mind, I grew up in a non-religious world (Scandinavia), so religious communities is usually something you see happening in either the US or the Middle East on TV or on satire shows. But the quoted sentence is pretty much how I would imagine somebody with half a brain trying to rationalize why victims are to blame for their situation, unless you live in some kind of bubble thinking people get pregnant and have abortions the same way Aussies have BBQ and a six pack of beer, all in good fun to much cheers.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Let's just say, I don't subscribe to that "just world" theory one bit. The world is inherently unfair and unreasonable and I would consider it everybody's responsibility to try to mitigate the excesses.

So you're saying, it's effectively victim blaming going on? Bear in mind, I grew up in a non-religious world (Scandinavia), so religious communities is usually something you see happening in either the US or the Middle East on TV or on satire shows. But the quoted sentence is pretty much how I would imagine somebody with half a brain trying to rationalize why victims are to blame for their situation, unless you live in some kind of bubble thinking people get pregnant and have abortions the same way Aussies have BBQ and a six pack of beer, all in good fun to much cheers.

It's victim blaming at the root, with religion as the delivery mechanism. Again, my 2 cents

[Raithe]

For something different...

SMH - ‘Breach of trust’: Police using QR check-in data to solve crimes

Quote

Queensland Police gained access to the Check In Qld app in June through a search warrant after the theft of a police-issued firearm, which led to an officer being stood down. Western Australian Police has used its data twice without a warrant, which led to the state then banning police from accessing the data, while Victoria Police has tried but been rebuffed on at least three occasions.

A spokesperson for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said protecting personal information was central to maintaining public trust and promoting compliance with health orders and contact tracing.

 

What’s that? Cops did a thing that was explicitly said that they would not do, thereby eroding public trust in Covid safety measures? Who would have thought that would ever be possible…

Edited September 10, 2021 by Raithe

[Sarex]

US interfering in Russian election.

[Hurlshort]

5 minutes ago, Sarex said:

US interfering in Russian election.

Oh no. What a travesty. 

[Zoraptor]

On 8/31/2021 at 7:12 AM, ComradeYellow said:

Afghanistan drone strike: Relative of victims speaks to BBC - BBC News

Oof that ain't good, one American bomb kills 10 members of one family, including 6 children, and that's just one case that's been reported!  No doubt they'd just claim it was an accident, as per U.S. Air Force custom

(Pretty rare for the BBC to report such things!  See my post earlier about the U.K. being seriously distraught at the U.S. over Afghanistan, I wasn't kidding.)

On 8/31/2021 at 9:42 AM, Zoraptor said:

So long as the intelligence was good and they were suicide bombers it would be a 'genuine' example of collateral damage and minimising harm

Now looking like the intelligence was actually complete and utter garbage. [alt link summary for anyone hitting the NYT's paywall]

If true not only did they not hit a suicide bomber, but they managed to hit someone they'd previously worked extensively with themselves. And it's quite difficult to see how it isn't true.

The great shame about these things- in addition to the completely innocent victims getting blown to chunks, of course- is that all most people will remember is Biden striking back at ISIS, not that he struck back at someone completely innocent. If the latter part made more headway there'd be a lot less strike first think later going on in the first place because there would be actual consequences for mistakes.

[Raithe]

TheHill - South Dakota Governor issues executive order restricting access to abortion medicine

Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Tuesday issued an executive order restricting abortion medications, requiring that they be picked up in person at a doctor's office.

In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted restrictions on sending abortion-inducing medications through the mail, determining that sending the medicine remotely through telemedicine did not increase risk.

In her executive order, Noem dictated that abortion-inducing medications such as mifepristone may be dispensed to a woman by a physician licensed in South Dakota only after an in-person examination. Data on the number of chemical abortions performed and any complications as well as information to indicate if the woman was "coerced or sex trafficked and forced to take the pills" will also be collected, per Noem's order.
ADVERTISEMENT

Her oder also says that no manufacturers, suppliers or physicians will supply abortion medications via telemedicine or mail service. They also cannot be provided in any school or on state grounds, including colleges and universities, with the South Dakota Republican claiming that the "abortion industry" is targeting young women.

[Darkpriest]

12 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Now looking like the intelligence was actually complete and utter garbage. [alt link summary for anyone hitting the NYT's paywall]

If true not only did they not hit a suicide bomber, but they managed to hit someone they'd previously worked extensively with themselves. And it's quite difficult to see how it isn't true.

The great shame about these things- in addition to the completely innocent victims getting blown to chunks, of course- is that all most people will remember is Biden striking back at ISIS, not that he struck back at someone completely innocent. If the latter part made more headway there'd be a lot less strike first think later going on in the first place because there would be actual consequences for mistakes.

This is only another piece on the incompetence of this crew. 

Botched evac, leaving US citizens behind, killing civilians and a co-worker in a drone strike, and not sharing any details on who they actually killed in another strike (probably some nobody, and given the Kabul strike, probably innocent as well) 

This presidency might actually become worse than Trumps in terms of foreign policies  

 

 

 

[HoonDing]

Biden is making me unironically miss Trump. At least Trump wasn't a killer.

[BruceVC]

17 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Now looking like the intelligence was actually complete and utter garbage. [alt link summary for anyone hitting the NYT's paywall]

If true not only did they not hit a suicide bomber, but they managed to hit someone they'd previously worked extensively with themselves. And it's quite difficult to see how it isn't true.

The great shame about these things- in addition to the completely innocent victims getting blown to chunks, of course- is that all most people will remember is Biden striking back at ISIS, not that he struck back at someone completely innocent. If the latter part made more headway there'd be a lot less strike first think later going on in the first place because there would be actual consequences for mistakes.

 

4 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

This is only another piece on the incompetence of this crew. 

Botched evac, leaving US citizens behind, killing civilians and a co-worker in a drone strike, and not sharing any details on who they actually killed in another strike (probably some nobody, and given the Kabul strike, probably innocent as well) 

This presidency might actually become worse than Trumps in terms of foreign policies  

 

 

 

Guys surely we should all know by now how the outrage and framing of  certain events works when it comes to developments that the US or UK or most " Western " countries are involved in when it comes to places like ME 

Their is normally bias , like the US is at war with Islam, and selective but real issues raised by some media houses and countries that comment in the public space 

Drones are an effective and proven strategy in the war on terror, they are not going to be dropped because of the nature of how some of  these extremist groups operate in countries like Yemen and Afghanistan . But of course  we never like to hear of these tragedies because when a drone attack goes badly it can lead to civilian deaths but its also a sad reality that Afghanistan is a  country that has a history of bombings and indiscriminate killings of civilians by numerous groups like the Taliban or ISIS. For example in the years before the US withdrawal this is just one example of bombs and general violence directed towards  civilians ...and I am not saying this normalizes  the US drone issue  but when a mistake is made in a country where you have weekly intentional killings of citizens you must ask " is this something  that needs anti- US sentiment and global coverage " ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2020_Afghanistan_attacks

@Darkpriest

But I am not convinced its fair to blame Biden for the sequence of events with the US withdrawal. He is receiving lots of criticism and suddenly we have all this concern from people about the future of the country and the  erosion of the positive changes the US invasion brought.

But the current state  of Afghanistan is not great. The current Taliban are better than the old Taliban but not really in the ways that matter. They have no experience or institutional   knowledge  in how to run a country so their is very little chance of the country not getting much worse in its economic progress and the general quality of life getting worse and worse. The Taliban are trying to ensure the country doesn't collapse but I dont see how any  objectives will ever be 

So we should all prepare ourselves for what a collapse means to us and what will the real consequences be ?Personally I will be sad and disappointed if this happens but I dont blame  the US for this outcome. I have always supported the US and its allies in the  necessary phases after 9/11 and yes when mistakes occurred, like the justification for the Iraq invasion, we accept these mistakes and learn from them but we dont focus on that incident as all that matters

I went to Afghanistan once in 2006 and what I really enjoyed seeing was the established ways that women now had rights and access to education. It was patently obvious in Kabul where there were already  schools for Afghan girls and Afghan women in government and working. All of us have women in our lives that matter on every level but none of us would ever be concerned about a law that prevented any young girl from being educated or a law that simply made it illegal for any women to hold a job. So for me and witnessing this type of positive change after 9/11 made me feel much better about the outcomes of war on terror as I had become jaded about the Iraq invasion and was questioning what was the purpose 

So seeing something like Afghan women being educated and working really made a difference for me at the time

So what is going to upset me will be the erosion of women's rights, at least this is the only country I know of where Sharia law is interpreted in that way and to be  a little fair to the Taliban they shouldnt be considered an Islamic extremist group but rather a Islamic militant group? But the point is they not like ISIS or AQ, they just have very outdated views of Sharia law 

 

[rjshae]

6 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Biden is making me unironically miss Trump. At least Trump wasn't a killer.

Sure, sure. How quickly we forget Trump's response to the pandemic.

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Biden is making me unironically miss Trump. At least Trump wasn't a killer.

Hoonding I hate it when you feel let down by white people

I know its something that can difficult to accept but I did mention there are some things that white people failed to resolve and improve in the history of mankind. Colonialism did lots of good to many undeveloped parts of the world but their are always things that can go wrong

But its not fair to call Biden a killer and their will be people making this outlandish claim.....he used a drone strike to target an ISIS group that exists in  Afghanistan. ISIS gets targeted by the majority of countries in the  ME or countries that have been fighting Islamic extremism like the USA, UK or Russia

And now after killing 13 US soldiers and dozens of Afghan civilians Biden had to respond like he does when the US is targeted lately in the US

So he is no more a killer than any other US president who has had to deal with reality of the war on terror and how the US is targeted often. If he hadnt responded I would be critical

But yes always try not to make statements like " Biden is a killer " when it comes to normal response by countries to terrorist attacks 

 

[Malcador]

10 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

This is only another piece on the incompetence of this crew. 

Botched evac, leaving US citizens behind, killing civilians and a co-worker in a drone strike, and not sharing any details on who they actually killed in another strike (probably some nobody, and given the Kabul strike, probably innocent as well) 

This presidency might actually become worse than Trumps in terms of foreign policies

This seems par for the course for the US for a long, long, long time, though.

[ComradeYellow]

Yup, especially since 1945 when the U.S. decided to be British Empire 2.0.  Just look at the Korean War where Mao was forced to send Chinese troops into North Korea so a U.S. puppet state wasn't right on their door step....and ALL THE WAY TO MODERN TIMES where the U.S. supported Neo-Nazi's in Ukraine in order to put a puppet state right on Russia's door.  The list goes on and on and on but I figure taking the first example and  the latest one is sufficient for demonstrational purposes.

Edited September 12, 2021 by ComradeYellow

[Darkpriest]

Well, this seems like an interesting comparison. You US folk might still have Trump in the game as a real contender for 2024

 

I'm so curious of the 2022 election cycle as well, what the seats will be like. 

 

Next week also seems to be an interesting point in time for the economy and the markets. 

Will some folks be tempted to buy the recent dip in stocks, or will the house of cards start crumbling, as stagflation roars its ugly head up even more despite all the money printing plus all the excessive governmental spending? Will the large september options expiries and Q3 portfolios rebalancing not find enough buyers making stocks to crash? 

 

 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

Yup, especially since 1945 when the U.S. decided to be British Empire 2.0.  Just look at the Korean War where Mao was forced to send Chinese troops into North Korea so a U.S. puppet state wasn't right on their door step....and ALL THE WAY TO MODERN TIMES where the U.S. supported Neo-Nazi's in Ukraine in order to put a puppet state right on Russia's door.  The list goes on and on and on but I figure taking the first example and  the latest one is sufficient for demonstrational purposes.

Nah, Im sorry but you cant suggest that overall the US military interventions have led to failure and things getting worse

I would argue that US military campaigns have helped make the world a safer place, we can confirm this by looking at the overall outcomes after US intervention

I always thought this was something that US members would never question as its irrefutable truth, for example 

1. WW1 : The US intervened near the end but its questionable if the Allies would have defeated the Germans once Russia had surrendered 
2. WW2 : The USA played a critical role in achieving victory
3. Cold War conflicts : which was necessary as a way to weaken the Communist blocs but the USA and it allies didn't lose the Cold War 
4. Serbia : The US bombing campaign helped end the violence 
5. War on Terror and ME : The US is expected to always be part of the ME conflicts in some ways with the latest return of the US by Trump to present Iran with a unified enemy 
6. Iraq and Afghanistan : Both conflicts the US spent resources and effort to stabilize these countries but left after at least creating an independent government 

So I am genuinely interested  where people may feel the USA military intervention has made things worse...I just see the historical examples? 

[BruceVC]

51 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Well, this seems like an interesting comparison. You US folk might still have Trump in the game as a real contender for 2024

 

I'm so curious of the 2022 election cycle as well, what the seats will be like. 

 

Next week also seems to be an interesting point in time for the economy and the markets. 

Will some folks be tempted to buy the recent dip in stocks, or will the house of cards start crumbling, as stagflation roars its ugly head up even more despite all the money printing plus all the excessive governmental spending? Will the large september options expiries and Q3 portfolios rebalancing not find enough buyers making stocks to crash? 

 

 

Trump could become the Republican candidate ......and he could win in the next election

But I have tried to warn our American forum members that some of these liberal, Democrat polices could really alienate supporters of Biden and suddenly Trump is back in power !!! And as much as that sounds fine I really dont think I can deal with 4 years of the Trumpism 

I respect your economic predictions because no one can say any economic prediction cannot happen because these concerns can happen , but I dont agree the US is going to implode and crash.....of course their are always factors like high oil price which increases inflation and that can always have serious impact. But I am more concerned with these Corona Stimulus checks that allow people  not to work because they earn more money not working, this can also increase inflation like UBI 

 

[ComradeYellow]

21 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Nah, Im sorry but you cant suggest that overall the US military interventions have led to failure and things getting worse

Sure I can.  Every single military conflict the U.S. has engaged in has been a disaster since 1945, and has never achieved its set objectives, in fact the opposite, has resulted in senseless slaughter with the enemy ultimately prevailing*.

Hell, I'll go out on a limb and say that the American business community has done a far better job at achieving ideological victories that its military, I mean just check out the first McDonald's that opened in Moscow in 1991 or all the American corporations that set up shop in China in the late 1970's to the present.   Heck, American businesses to this day are pushing against restrictions on Chinese trade, as I'm getting the impression that they love China more than they do the U.S. and are getting quite fed up with the American public lately.  Strange times.

*The Iraq War being an exception, but ultimately worse forces like ISIS operating in the region is also a massive backfire.

Edited September 12, 2021 by ComradeYellow

[BruceVC]

40 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:

Sure I can.  Every single military conflict the U.S. has engaged in has been a disaster since 1945, and has never achieved its set objectives, in fact the opposite, has resulted in senseless slaughter with the enemy ultimately prevailing*.

Hell, I'll go out on a limb and say that the American business community has done a far better job at achieving ideological victories that its military, I mean just check out the first McDonald's that opened in Moscow in 1991 or all the American corporations that set up shop in China in the late 1970's to the present.   Heck, American businesses to this day are pushing against restrictions on Chinese trade, as I'm getting the impression that they love China more than they do the U.S. and are getting quite fed up with the American public lately.  Strange times.

*The Iraq War being an exception, but ultimately worse forces like ISIS operating in the region is also a massive backfire.

Well the US doesn't dislike China on a personal level or to the point of  creating unnecessary economic harm to the US economy. We had the trade war with China which proved what we know about the economic reality of how China needs to drive its economy. Despite some rhetoric from the CCP it hurt them and for the first time China was quiet about the endless insults from Trump and his surrogates like Pompeo ....they really tried to blame China for the virus spread and it was unfair and just a form of grandstanding

But Trump lost and only once Biden was confirmed to have won on the 6 January did China suddenly declare these bizarre sanctions on many of Trumps cabinet ....but they waited till Trump was gone because they did not want to risk another example of a trade war. I understand this concern, China is primarily an export driven economy and it relies on the inexhaustible appetite of the US to buy much of its goods. So of course its better to have good relations with China because of the economic relationship which is reciprocal. 

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/20/china-sanctions-pompeo-obrien-azar-and-other-trump-administration-officials.html

It was strange to see how the CCP was wary of Trump and yet seemed to respect him more but when Biden made any critical comments about China they were openly critical and hostile in their normal way

Its a pity it takes a Trump personality to get China to consider their behavior ? 

[Gorth]

On 9/12/2021 at 8:54 AM, BruceVC said:

For example in the years before the US withdrawal this is just one example of bombs and general violence directed towards  civilians ...and I am not saying this normalizes  the US drone issue  but when a mistake is made in a country where you have weekly intentional killings of citizens you must ask " is this something  that needs anti- US sentiment and global coverage " ?

On the other hand, you shouldn't really let "what about what the other guy did first" be an excuse for not holding those accountable who makes those (deadly) mistakes... whether it be the operator, the hardware or more likely an intelligence failure. As for global coverage, you and I both know media (including social media) is business first and foremost. Ratings matter. The more viewers and readers you can attract, the happier the advertisers and sponsors are, regardless of who gets thrown under the bus. That's free market economy too

 

[rjshae]

18 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But I have tried to warn our American forum members that some of these liberal, Democrat polices could really alienate supporters of Biden and suddenly Trump is back in power !!! And as much as that sounds fine I really dont think I can deal with 4 years of the Trumpism 

But that's the way politics works in the USA now: the two parties are so far apart that political oscillation can't be avoided. You get your left/right-wing President in office with control of Congress, and you get a year to ram through your left/right platform. Then the next election cycle kicks in and it's stalemate for 3-7 years, whereupon the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme. Even a moderate Biden is trapped in this cycle.

I think the fix is to change the pluralistic voting scheme to a method that's more tolerant of multiple candidates, such as approval voting or ranked choice. That gives moderate candidates a greater chance of winning office.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

But that's the way politics works in the USA now: the two parties are so far apart that political oscillation can't be avoided. You get your left/right-wing President in office with control of Congress, and you get a year to ram through your left/right platform. Then the next election cycle kicks in and it's stalemate for 3-7 years, whereupon the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme. Even a moderate Biden is trapped in this cycle.

I think the fix is to change the pluralistic voting scheme to a method that's more tolerant of multiple candidates, such as approval voting or ranked choice. That gives moderate candidates a greater chance of winning office.

Yes you right, it seems to an almost unavoidable pattern .....and yet I always wonder " if most people, and I mean US citizens,  are aware of this is their not more that can be done to avoid the same repetition " .....but I do think sometimes its inevitable because of the general nature of politics in all Constitutional Democracies 

And what is interesting is how this really is observed and yet seems ignored by the elected political party . For example Biden said when he was elected " I want to reach out and work with Republicans " 

And lately Biden has been accused of "not working with Republicans " by  Scott Jennings, a Republican commentator who always frames things IMO in a reasonable way on CNN. He is one of the standard Republican guests that CNN often uses to represent the GOP perspective 

But I think Biden has tried in many examples to get consensus but he will use the Democrat majority in the Senate to push through certain laws or bills. And then the Republicans do the same thing when they the majority 

So the cycle gets repeated by both sides but as I mentioned this generally happens in most of our countries 

 

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

On the other hand, you shouldn't really let "what about what the other guy did first" be an excuse for not holding those accountable who makes those (deadly) mistakes... whether it be the operator, the hardware or more likely an intelligence failure. As for global coverage, you and I both know media (including social media) is business first and foremost. Ratings matter. The more viewers and readers you can attract, the happier the advertisers and sponsors are, regardless of who gets thrown under the bus. That's free market economy too

 

Sure, I hear you and also you and I have discussed how you personally feel about drone strikes generally and how this example is exactly what you talk about when you say drones are a bad strategy

But  let me give you an example of what I am talking about, read this link quickly 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/09/asia/afghanistan-girls-school-attack-intl-hnk/index.html

This stories have always been covered and raised on international media but in this specific example Comrade didn't post this link and no one expressed any outrage and sadness at the loss of 85 Afghan girls

And  I am not criticizing   anyone on a personal level  because this is what  I mean by an established reaction that occurs in many countries by some people but they will only  react if counties like the US are involved

So in other words for Comrade when he posted the article about the drone strikes he isnt  doing it because he cares about the loss of Afghan civilians lives. Not at all, this is about anti-USA sentiment and is just done for ideological reasons 

And again I am not trying to target him because we all tend to do this in our own way. We just need to be honest about why sometimes we are making the post or expressing outrage

And finally their are people who do care about the loss civilian lives in Afghanistan so its not all doom and gloom

 

Edited September 13, 2021 by BruceVC

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, rjshae said:

I think the fix is to change the pluralistic voting scheme to a method that's more tolerant of multiple candidates, such as approval voting or ranked choice. That gives moderate candidates a greater chance of winning office.

I can only refer to what I grew up with... in Denmark in the 60's, 70's and 18's, there were at times up to I *think* 14 political parties. It worked with a threshold system. Anyone getting the required minimum of 2% of the polular vote was guaranteed at least one seat in parliament. After the these seats were allocated to parties, the remaining seats were allocated after something not quite popular vote based, but more community based. Each town, region, large suburb etc. was an electoral circuit which got to send the local, popular vote winner to parliament. It was not unusual for candidates sometimes switching party if they didn't like where their party was headed. It meant a system which was almost always inherently "centrist", always marginalizing the extremes. They got heard, but had little influence. Good thing too, as it was a mix of everything from right populists to honest to god communists with close ties to Moscow

 

Edit: that’s how a stand up comedian once ennded up in parliament for a few years. People were tired of the establishment and so got more than 2% of the popular vote. A relatively harmless outcome of an unhappy population at the polls. Of course he didn’t keep his election promises, we didn’t get more tailwind on the bicycle paths nor free Nutella for school lunches

[Maedhros]

@Gorth

It's somewhat the same here up North, but I'd say the smaller parties have a decent degree of influence though, since the biggest parties are often reliant on them in coalitions to win elections. Meaning they have to concede some of the overall power to them if they want their support. Or are you talking about the absolute looney extremes? They're completely marginalized here too, luckily. Our threshold is 4%, so it's a bit harder for them to overcome it.

It's actually election day in Norway today, seems like we'll have a Left-Centre government for the first time in 8 years. Not that it will change much (I think). The two biggest parties here, The Social Democrats (Arbeiderpartiet) and Right (Conservatives) actually see eye to eye on pretty much everything important except on taxes.