Politics thread (USA Elections 2016) - Page 108

On February 27 2019 01:12 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On February 26 2019 18:17 Loco wrote: Lots of strong opinions here presented as facts, as usual. Can't find any facts at all or you engaging with the facts that I have presented. "I don't need to present evidence for something so obvious" lol, that's a gem... okay bud. I dont think evidence is required to know Brazil is a much better place for gay people than Iran or that Venezuela treats worse political dissidents than the US, these aren't strong opinions, I've written thousands of paragraphs discussin with you over the years, these subjects should be so blatantly obvious its insane to even ask for evidence... I mean come on.   So Bolsonaro is just a "right-wing" leader huh, not an insanely homophobic and openly fascist leader. Mm-hm. I havent seen him talking about ethnic cleansing or him trying to become a dictator or anything that would make me qualify him as a fascist, it sure seems like he is a conservative imbecile and indeed homophobic. (also openly would mean he calls himself a fascist wouldnt it?)   Well there's at least one thing I can respond to with facts. Your claim that " these sanctions are legal" is patently false, as I have shown before. "The first UN rapporteur to visit Venezuela for 21 years has told The Independent the US sanctions on the country are illegal and could amount to “crimes against humanity” under international law." So you know what I care about and what I don't care about now? I don't have to care about it as a sacred principle, I can just take on a consequentialist stance and show that every time that the US hasn't respected it, it leads to more suffering and death, and say that it should not be supported. But you, in all your wisdom, "understand" that "this time it's different".... it's definitely not just the 68th coup against a sovereign nation to serve imperialist interests, no, it's okay to meddle with them because there is "a humanitarian crisis" and things will all get better once neoliberalism is back in Venezuela. Yes I know you dont care about that the law, you just confirmed it and that is a good thing, I was just pointing out that you shouldnt say things like "its breaking the law" as if that was relevant. I do not support military intervention in Venezuela, didn't I already said this like 3 times already?. I think Venezuela would be better off if Maduro were toppled, however allowing other countries to military intervene other countries for these reasons is worse than the damage Maduro would make... unlike you I dont compromise my principles and dont make ideological exeptions, for freedom of speech, violence or military intervention.   I don't know who Jorge Ramos is, it's important for me to have an idea as to what motivates him. The only thing I can see from a quick google search is that he is out to tell his story on all of the usual propaganda outlets. In the world that I live in, that makes alarm bells go off. When I see Marco Rubio pushing it hard on Twitter, it's even more suspicious. But if he was indeed mistreated by Maduro and was there to conduct a legitimate interview with him, I will have no problem condemning those actions. I want to read about it from a legitimate source before I evaluate the situation. If I were doing the same in the case of a story like the MAGA kids you'd applaud me for being careful and not jumping to conclusions based on one Nathan Phillips' "literally saying what happened", but here I am doing "mental gymnastics" for being careful about one man's opinion because it fits within your confirmation bias. Jorge Ramos is the most known latinamerican journalist in the world, he has interviewed Chavez and Maduro and he isn't remotely right wing, he is a democrat that despises Trump, this isn't a random hobo describing his subjective take.   My position is not that Maduro is blameless, it's that the attacks on Venezuelan democracy are indefensible and that we should look at whatever happens or has happened in its proper context. Ultimately, it's unavoidable that Maduro will make mistakes, I can't imagine how on edge I would be if my country was about to be invaded and pillaged (again). Everyone is out to get a piece of you to provide something that will serve as the catalyst, and that's where anyone's worst authoritarian tendencies are most likely to come out. ' military intervention in Venezuela would be indefensible, Maduro's murderous starving regime is also indefensible, but you find it quite defensible.

Fascism has arrived in Brazil (The Independant article). Yes, he is openly fascist, but that doesn't mean he calls himself a fascist. Of course, it's the left that he will try to purge that are the "real fascists" according to him.

Jorge Ramos is not an independant journalist, which means that he doesn't get to have complete freedom over his reporting. I looked into the funding for his org and they get money from Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation among others, people with very clear imperialist interests. If he is the most popular latin american journalist, that immediately tells me I shouldn't trust him, because he knows how to manipulate public opinion. People who only care about reporting the facts and speaking truth to power are destined to relative obscurity. Journalists have one duty and it is to inform, not to tell us what to believe. In this interview, I read that he called Maduro a dictator, which is hardly a justifiable move for a journalist to make. Just a few days ago by contrast, Tucker Carlson, the leading pundit of the right-wing in america censored his guest who honestly called him out on his funding. He refused to air the interview. It's a similar thing in that I'm sure they both weren't expecting someone to be so hostile to their interests, except that here this guy wasn't a journalist, and Carlson praises freedom of speech more than anyone. But of course if you were to ask him, he'd say he never compromises on his values either. We are all masters at deceiving ourselves. If there is one thing you do care more about than reason it is your self-image, your idealized image of yourself, and you will lie to yourself in order to try to maintain it just like everyone else.

You cannot make an honest case that you are anti-war and anti-intervention when you openly support a "might makes right" agenda that involves meddling with a country by suffocating them economically and funding violent opposition groups. We've gone over this and there is nothing more to say. I don't know the level of corruption that there has been in Maduro's government, because the only sources that I can find speaking of it in some detail are supporters of neoliberalism. I know it exists, I know it's worse than it was during Chavez, but it's impossible to tell what the country would be like if it wasn't for the economic warfare that they have been fighting against. You cannot claim to know and I cannot claim to know. One thing I am sure of is that there is a lot less corruption there than there is in the US. Maduro isn't a billionaire who hates the poor; but his opposition are gochos: mostly wealthy, racist, and Christian, and they're backed by US billionaires who obviously despise the poor and the marginalized.

On February 27 2019 03:21 Loco wrote: I misread because I assumed you meant that I should have listened to him but didn't because I'm dogmatic, since you know I'm so opposed to his ideas and that was the theme of your post. I didn't "follow his advice" because that implies that I outgrew cynicism because of him, but he was completely irrelevant to this. I outgrew it through independent study. I said it from the beginning that I didn't completely oppose his "crusade" against post-modernism, that my main philosophical influences are not "postmodernists" (post-structuralists). I think it's a grave mistake to be too much engaged in that kind of philosophical literature at the expense of a scientific education. You're making a claim that it's self-evident that there are over-educated or over-read people, but you're not explaining your rationale. From my perspective, there's no such thing per se. If I were to use those words I would mean that the person is over-educated or over-read in a specific area of knowledge, and it is that specialization that blinds them to the issues that cannot be understood from that knowledge-base alone, or as we say in systems thinking, from that level of organization. It's something I'd usually associate with being a STEM academic, usually an arrogant one, like the many who dismiss philosophy as a useless field. Other than that, I don't see how you can "read too much". It's not a matter of quantity, it's a matter of quality: reading well, contextualizing your knowledge, being able to communicate it, etc. The only person I know who referred to herself as "over-educated" (on a dating site no less) is actually poorly educated even in her field of specialization (biology) and she is a philistine. I don't know what the fuck they teach in those schools but she had never heard of structural determinism before and she thought people have libertarian free will (and she has New Age beliefs too). If I have a quest it is a quest to not be fooled -- to not live in illusion. It is to unapologetically be myself and speak my mind, no matter if I am the only person going against the grain and I am condemned or mocked for it, or, as is most often the case here, completely misunderstood and misrepresented. You're trying to mirror my previous criticism of your binary thinking and you fail at it, because in that same post you once again use that very thinking by associating my ideas with the spooky ghost of "communism" because if I'm not a capitalist like you then I automatically must be a communist (you mean a Marxist), even though I have been extremely clear in my criticisms of Marxism. It's so sad to be so poorly-read on subjects that you supposedly care much about. Communism/socialism/marxism, all terms that can be interchanged for you and which shouldn't be, and all used to avoid dealing with the arguments presented by other people, because you can always lazily reduce their views to "that old discredited idea" and feel warm and fuzzy about your intellectual superiority.

I know you didn't literally follow his advise for fucks sake... it was a joke because you dislike JBP -_-

You read it as an attack from the first sentence, I wasn't saying antinatalist and vegan as negatives but the contrary, antinatalism and veganism are positions that often require sacrifice in pursuit of minimize suffering, since I was going to expand on his your "pursuit of minimizing suffering" lead to dogma, perhaps I'm just changing gears in my posts between calling you clinically retarded and that one that its hard to read the tone.

I remember hearing over-educated once in a movie, dont remember which but I think it was Kevin Spacey trashing somebody

We have the same quest then, and I dont construct dichotomies quite the contrary I try to dimension the broad comlplexity of society, I dont see the world as leftists vs freedom or something like that, it is you that see it as leftism vs fascism and fascist enablers, as the compassionate and the compassionless, you belielve my thoughts come from me simply not caring for reason and that I'm incapable of empathy.

I dont see you like you see me, that was the point of my post I think you are wrong because you fell into dogmatic views with the best intentions in mind because well its easy to believe things that are wrong, smarter people than us have fallen for very dumb things so I dont need to think of you as unempathetic or irrational to believe what you do.

Also I call you a communist because you keep calling my ideas neoliberal so I said I would return the favor labeling your ideologies in the same fashion.

On February 27 2019 03:48 Loco wrote: Fascism has arrived in Brazil (The Independant article). Yes, he is openly fascist, but that doesn't mean he calls himself a fascist. Of course, it's the left that he will try to purge that are the "real fascists" according to him. Jorge Ramos is not an independant journalist, which means that he doesn't get to have complete freedom over his reporting. I looked into the funding for his org and they get money from Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation among others, people with very clear imperialist interests. If he is the most popular latin american journalist, that immediately tells me I shouldn't trust him, because he knows how to manipulate public opinion. People who only care about reporting the facts and speaking truth to power are destined to relative obscurity. Journalists have one duty and it is to inform, not to tell us what to believe. In this interview, I read that he called Maduro a dictator, which is hardly a justifiable move for a journalist to make. Just a few days ago by contrast, Tucker Carlson, the leading pundit of the right-wing in america censored his guest who honestly called him out on his funding. He refused to air the interview. It's a similar thing in that I'm sure they both weren't expecting someone to be so hostile to their interests, except that here this guy wasn't a journalist, and Carlson praises freedom of speech more than anyone. But of course if you were to ask him, he'd say he never compromises on his values either. We are all masters at deceiving ourselves. If there is one thing you do care more about than reason it is your self-image, your idealized image of yourself, and you will lie to yourself in order to try to maintain it just like everyone else. You cannot make an honest case that you are anti-war and anti-intervention when you openly support a "might makes right" agenda that involves meddling with a country by suffocating them economically and funding violent opposition groups. We've gone over this and there is nothing more to say. I don't know the level of corruption that there has been in Maduro's government, because the only sources that I can find speaking of it in some detail are supporters of neoliberalism. I know it exists, I know it's worse than it was during Chavez, but it's impossible to tell what the country would be like if it wasn't for the economic warfare that they have been fighting against. You cannot claim to know and I cannot claim to know. One thing I am sure of is that there is a lot less corruption there than there is in the US. Maduro isn't a billionaire who hates the poor; but his opposition are gochos: mostly wealthy, racist, and Christian, and they're backed by US billionaires who obviously despise the poor and the marginalized.

Thats an opinion piece without direct quotes or information that links bolsognaro with fascism, he is clearly very right wing and has retarded conservative ideas like homophobia etc, perhaps Drone (the brazilian not the Norse one) coudl shed some light into it, but so far I haven't seen him do or say anything that dwelves into fascism realm.

Jorge Ramos is a democrat so very anti-trump but also anti Chavez/Maduro and Its not that you should trust blindly his opinion at all, but he is making very clear accusations, there is a big line between bias and flat out lying about being detained and having their equipment taken away, I think its very unlikely he is falt out lying about this.

Tucker Carlson is retarded but yeah of course we are geat at self deception and self-image is a huge subconscious drive far more than reason in most cases.

Its not that sanctions are not interventionism, what I'm saying is that a country should have the moral choice to trade or not with a country it has severe disagreements with, if I ruled a country I wouldnt trade with North Korea and help perpetuate their regime, I wouldn't play games to create an economic siege, just a simple choice to cut ties with the country, I'm not saying that is what the US is doing thouogh.

On the subject of Venezuelan corruption I hate to do this "you wouldnt know" non-argument, but I think It would be very hard for you to grasp the extent of corruption in our countries until you have lived in here for a while, I could go on on examples if you really want.

I have never claimed or believed that I was sacrificing something because I live according to my principles. I refrain from doing things that I don't have a good reason to do, it's that simple. If I on the other hand behaved according to the status quo then I would be sacrificing my dignity as a freethinker.

I never claimed that you were a neoliberal or that you had no empathy. I don't care about your ideas on economics because I cannot place them in any working context or associate them with anyone that works in the field and matters in 2019. What matters in 2019 is to fight against neoliberal hegemony, more than anything else (not just externally but inwardly), and that is the extent to which I support the so-called socialist countries, because it's absolutely essential that the entire world isn't gobbled up by the American empire that is dooming us all to oblivion. It is an insane force, an unconscious death drive, which anyone who is conscious will oppose.

The fact is, the closest society to your views that exists right now and "functions" is the US, since somalia is a failed state, and I pointed out that you have previously claimed to admire Milton Friedman who is one of the fathers of neoliberalism, but I didn't call you a neoliberal. Neoliberalism and empathy don't go well together. It's a barbaric economic ideology, no mistake can be made about it. Your idea that poor children in the Global North aren't really poor and that people like me who are materially well off are just ingrates and "champagne socialist", the way that you pigeonhole and denigrate "SJWs" (using that term alone should disqualify anyone from any serious discussion), or trivialize the struggles of LGBT people in Brazil genuinely reflects that you are disconnected from the suffering of others, it is not my invention.

You can play your "but you started it" childish game if you want, it just reflects badly on you in more ways than one. I am probably among <0.1% of people my age who have had the luxury to think for themselves full-time for nearly a decade. I have had more free time than anyone I have ever met in my entire life including all internet interactions. I put myself through countless depressions by reevaluating myself and pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. If I am a dogmatic individual after all of this, then I don't know where you could find people who are not, that's all I can say about that.

On February 27 2019 05:02 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On February 27 2019 03:48 Loco wrote: Fascism has arrived in Brazil (The Independant article). Yes, he is openly fascist, but that doesn't mean he calls himself a fascist. Of course, it's the left that he will try to purge that are the "real fascists" according to him. Jorge Ramos is not an independant journalist, which means that he doesn't get to have complete freedom over his reporting. I looked into the funding for his org and they get money from Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation among others, people with very clear imperialist interests. If he is the most popular latin american journalist, that immediately tells me I shouldn't trust him, because he knows how to manipulate public opinion. People who only care about reporting the facts and speaking truth to power are destined to relative obscurity. Journalists have one duty and it is to inform, not to tell us what to believe. In this interview, I read that he called Maduro a dictator, which is hardly a justifiable move for a journalist to make. Just a few days ago by contrast, Tucker Carlson, the leading pundit of the right-wing in america censored his guest who honestly called him out on his funding. He refused to air the interview. It's a similar thing in that I'm sure they both weren't expecting someone to be so hostile to their interests, except that here this guy wasn't a journalist, and Carlson praises freedom of speech more than anyone. But of course if you were to ask him, he'd say he never compromises on his values either. We are all masters at deceiving ourselves. If there is one thing you do care more about than reason it is your self-image, your idealized image of yourself, and you will lie to yourself in order to try to maintain it just like everyone else. You cannot make an honest case that you are anti-war and anti-intervention when you openly support a "might makes right" agenda that involves meddling with a country by suffocating them economically and funding violent opposition groups. We've gone over this and there is nothing more to say. I don't know the level of corruption that there has been in Maduro's government, because the only sources that I can find speaking of it in some detail are supporters of neoliberalism. I know it exists, I know it's worse than it was during Chavez, but it's impossible to tell what the country would be like if it wasn't for the economic warfare that they have been fighting against. You cannot claim to know and I cannot claim to know. One thing I am sure of is that there is a lot less corruption there than there is in the US. Maduro isn't a billionaire who hates the poor; but his opposition are gochos: mostly wealthy, racist, and Christian, and they're backed by US billionaires who obviously despise the poor and the marginalized. Thats an opinion piece without direct quotes or information that links bolsognaro with fascism, he is clearly very right wing and has retarded conservative ideas like homophobia etc, perhaps Drone (the brazilian not the Norse one) coudl shed some light into it, but so far I haven't seen him do or say anything that dwelves into fascism realm. Jorge Ramos is a democrat so very anti-trump but also anti Chavez/Maduro and Its not that you should trust blindly his opinion at all, but he is making very clear accusations, there is a big line between bias and flat out lying about being detained and having their equipment taken away, I think its very unlikely he is falt out lying about this. Tucker Carlson is retarded but yeah of course we are geat at self deception and self-image is a huge subconscious drive far more than reason in most cases. Its not that sanctions are not interventionism, what I'm saying is that a country should have the moral choice to trade or not with a country it has severe disagreements with, if I ruled a country I wouldnt trade with North Korea and help perpetuate their regime, I wouldn't play games to create an economic siege, just a simple choice to cut ties with the country, I'm not saying that is what the US is doing thouogh. On the subject of Venezuelan corruption I hate to do this "you wouldnt know" non-argument, but I think It would be very hard for you to grasp the extent of corruption in our countries until you have lived in here for a while, I could go on on examples if you really want.

The article was perfectly adequate to show that he is a fascist, but whatever. I will do all of the work again: here are direct quotes. Your thoughts on them please.

+ Show Spoiler +

It doesn't tell me anything that Ramos is anti-Trump, anyone who isn't a complete bigot and/or uneducated is going to be anti-Trump. Either way, I don't think that he should have been detained even if he was deeply disrespectful, so I'll just grant it to you. My concerns are the degree to which they are being authoritarian, not whether they are or not. I think it is being exaggerated. I know that there has been rampant corruption in latin america, but I truly believe that Chavez was an exception, and what I've gathered so far, combined with my intuition, tells me that Maduro isn't that bad, and he was selected by Chavez for a reason. This is not scientific, but this is a poker forum after all: when I look at a politician's face, people like Trump, Pompeo, Bolton, I can see their absolute lack of empathy, and the way that they work on autopilot. I think I have an exceptionally good ability to find out if people are lying and deceiving others just from hearing them speak. I don't get that feeling from Maduro. He strikes me as a decent man with a lot of courage to stand up for what he believes in but who has been put in a no-win situation from the start.

"Not trading" is obviously not what the US is doing and you should be explicit about this instead of equivocating.

I'm still reading this book I quoted before to better understand the situation in Venezuela. I'm going to post a short passage just to give an idea of how complex the situation is, a perspective that no one will ever get if they didn't live there and simply watch/read the news, any mainstream news. This passage deals with the collectives. I watched a terrible VICE documentary yesterday on them; it gave no insight as to where the collectives came from and how they compared with each other. In fact it didn't even raise the point that there were different groups. It essentially just looked at it from the point of view of some homogenized ''starving government-supporting thugs'' versus the ''reasonable opposition trying to reinstate democracy in order to feed people''.

And even though it is not the best passage to show this, it also serves to highlight that what Baal derogatorily calls ''socialist news'' is not some biased propaganda, but legitimate investigative journalism. It doesn't shy away from investigating government repression, corruption and violence. It paints a clear picture that many socialists there try to keep their government accountable (and some flat out oppose it), they aren't simply fighting alongside their government (or hired by it) against the neoliberal ideology that killed thousands during the days before the revolution.

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In October 2014, violence was in the air and on the tip of every tongue, and not only due to the opposition protests. On the first day of the month, the young Chavista firebrand Robert Serra was brutally murdered alongside his partner. Serra had been tied up in his apartment and stabbed more than thirty times, and the Maduro government placed the blame squarely on Colombian paramilitaries. While circumstances remain unclear, Serra himself had recently denounced Lorent Saleh’s ties to that kingpin of Colombian reaction, Álvaro Uribe. Despite Venezuela’s sharp polarization and violent street crime, political murders of this kind had been almost unheard of.

Scarcely a week later, on October 7, one of the most mysterious events of recent Venezuelan history ensued. In the rundown Quinta Crespo neighborhood, near Caracas’ old city center, the specialized police forces of the CICPC clashed with a little-known Chavista group, the March 5th Revolutionary Collective, in broad daylight, leading to an hours-long standoff. During a lull in the fighting, the group’s leader, José Odreman, spoke to the press, insisting that if anything happened to him, the guilt would fall directly on interior minister Miguel Rodríguez Torres. When asked if there was any connection between the police siege and Serra’s murder, Odreman—himself a former police officer—replied cryptically, “Math doesn’t lie.”

When the smoke cleared hours later, there were five dead, Odreman included, in what according to some accounts looked more like an execution than anything else. According to the police, those killed were members of a criminal gang guilty of extortion and even murder. Just three weeks before the clash, the right-wing newspaper El Nacional had published a critical exposé of Odreman and his collective’s operations in the Cotiza neighborhood to the north, recognizing their positive role in the community while also accusing them of intimidating neighbors and demanding protection payments.

But revolutionary collectives like the March 5th have long been the Bolivarian Revolution’s most ferocious defenders, and while it’s certainly possible for an armed revolutionary group to embrace criminal activity, many Chavistas would hesitate to take the word of the media or the state over that of the grassroots. To make things even more complex, a photo showing Odreman and Serra together began to circulate, stoking controversy and conspiracy theories. For those more sympathetic to the collectives, this was—in the words of longtime militant Roland Denis—Chavismo’s “first massacre.”

''The term “collectives” is sharply debated in Venezuela today. On a most basic level, it refers to a broad range of grassroots groups organized in different ways and toward different ends. Whenever a small group of neighbors, grassroots organizers, or activists come together under the aegis of the Bolivarian Revolution, we could say that a collective has been born. But most Venezuelans—Chavistas and anti-Chavistas alike—tend to use the term in a more specific way: to refer to the armed self-defense militias that emerged in poor barrios nationwide during the 1980s and 1990s, prior to the Bolivarian Revolution.

These militias were organic outgrowths of conditions in the barrios themselves. They emerged when neighbors got together and armed themselves to stamp out the drug trade and make their neighborhoods safe from gang violence and police repression. Since the police themselves were often complicit in the drug trade and the violence it wrought, the earliest collectives drove out the narcos and the police in the same gesture, taking responsibility for security in their local neighborhoods (some areas have not allowed the police to enter for more than twenty-five years). Unlike militias in many other parts of the world, these groups tended to be politically conscious: committed to communism and hostile to the bureaucratic central state.

As a result, many collectives supported Chávez’s coup in 1992, mobilized the grassroots for his election in 1998, and took up arms during the 2002 coup—not to attack the constitutional order, but to protect and restore it by playing a key role in reversing the coup and returning Chávez to power. Without these groups, and the support of the radical grassroots more generally, the Bolivarian Revolution most likely would not have survived past 2002. The fact that the government depended so heavily on armed revolutionary movements ultimately helped to radicalize the process as a whole. The collectives, the bedrock of the Revolution, have consistently attacked corruption, defended their local autonomy, and pressured those in power to move more quickly toward socialism.

As a historic counterweight to the centralized state, the collectives often clashed with Chávez himself, blockading their neighborhoods with burning barricades and prominently displaying weapons as a demonstration of revolutionary autonomy. But never before had the government drawn blood as it did in Quinta Crespo. The revolutionary collectives so central to the Bolivarian Revolution had been born under very different circumstances, however, winning their autonomy from a hostile state by force and at great cost. While this was no vaccine against corruption—some who fought the drug trade quickly turned to embrace it—today’s collectives are a much more mixed bag.

Some maintain a close relationship with the state and have benefited significantly from access to government funds. Others have opted for political and financial autonomy, taking a more radical line against the state as an institution that they see—even in the hands of Chavismo—to be corrupt and corrupting. Still others—and here things get murkier—have used their authority and even their weapons to seize territory and manage underground commerce for their own private ends. If this picture is not complex enough, many collectives also count police and ex-police among their ranks, including some purged from police forces for corruption and violence. The line between the state and the grassroots has become dangerously blurred indeed.

After Quinta Crespo, a painful debate ensued within the ranks of radical Chavismo: were those killed by the police revolutionary heroes or common criminals? Firsthand testimony emerged to support both possibilities, but a surprising number of revolutionaries swallowed the official position hook, line, and sinker, uncritically echoing government declarations that the March 5th was not a “real” collective, was not truly revolutionary, and was simply using the name “collective” as a cover for criminal activity. Many appear to have forgotten that the police are just as likely to be involved in violent crime as any collective—if not much more so. At any rate, the line between the two in contemporary Venezuela is less and less clear, a fact only underlined by Odreman’s own history as a police officer.''

Cohen testimony today is in full circus mode. There's a lot of juicy/funny stuff about Trump thinking his son's an idiot, threatening schools if they release test scores, and just your standard blatant racism. What's really amazing is how far we've come from "4chan hoax" with the Russia scandal though. Even I underestimated how bad it was, I thought wikileaks was just a dupe for example, they were winning to accepts hacks from anyone to get good press without any regard for the consequences. Turns out they actually were in contact with the Trump campaign through Roger Stone providing info on when their dumps would occur.

But then again maybe its all FAKE NEWS!!!

On February 27 2019 17:31 NMcNasty wrote: Cohen testimony today is in full circus mode. There's a lot of juicy/funny stuff about Trump thinking his son's an idiot, threatening schools if they release test scores, and just your standard blatant racism. What's really amazing is how far we've come from "4chan hoax" with the Russia scandal though. Even I underestimated how bad it was, I thought wikileaks was just a dupe for example, they were winning to accepts hacks from anyone to get good press without any regard for the consequences. Turns out they actually were in contact with the Trump campaign through Roger Stone providing info on when their dumps would occur. But then again maybe its all FAKE NEWS!!!

It's actually fake news, the Hillary emails thing were public information since May 2016

https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion...nojk9IWVfI6W4RhBnPZ197pMOjmAOdQgrN_hA

(news in spanish)


So remember I said the governor's helicopter "fell down" after 1 week of the election and I called it an obvious magnicie and Loco said that we should wait for the investigation (lol), well, journalist requested transparency and asked for the communications between the control tower and the helicopter at the time of the crash, well turns out that the federal government just said they are not going to release the coms but only after 6 years, after the presidential term of the main suspect is over.

As I said earlier, you just know latinamerica is corrupt but you dont truly understand how, the fact that you think in terms of "investigations" speaks for itself.

On February 27 2019 20:56 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On February 27 2019 17:31 NMcNasty wrote: Cohen testimony today is in full circus mode. There's a lot of juicy/funny stuff about Trump thinking his son's an idiot, threatening schools if they release test scores, and just your standard blatant racism. What's really amazing is how far we've come from "4chan hoax" with the Russia scandal though. Even I underestimated how bad it was, I thought wikileaks was just a dupe for example, they were winning to accepts hacks from anyone to get good press without any regard for the consequences. Turns out they actually were in contact with the Trump campaign through Roger Stone providing info on when their dumps would occur. But then again maybe its all FAKE NEWS!!! It's actually fake news, the Hillary emails thing were public information since May 2016

Assuming what you’re saying is correct it still doesn’t refute anything I wrote. Stone can still have backchannel contact with Wikileaks/Assange and give that info to Trump while Wikileaks still publicly gives a few weeks notice of its dumps. Stone has a gag order right now, so we’ll get a better picture of his full involvement in coming weeks. I wouldn’t continue to bet on nothing going on though, that seems to have a bad track record.

On February 27 2019 21:41 NMcNasty wrote: Show nested quote + On February 27 2019 20:56 Baalim wrote:   On February 27 2019 17:31 NMcNasty wrote: Cohen testimony today is in full circus mode. There's a lot of juicy/funny stuff about Trump thinking his son's an idiot, threatening schools if they release test scores, and just your standard blatant racism. What's really amazing is how far we've come from "4chan hoax" with the Russia scandal though. Even I underestimated how bad it was, I thought wikileaks was just a dupe for example, they were winning to accepts hacks from anyone to get good press without any regard for the consequences. Turns out they actually were in contact with the Trump campaign through Roger Stone providing info on when their dumps would occur. But then again maybe its all FAKE NEWS!!! It's actually fake news, the Hillary emails thing were public information since May 2016 Assuming what you’re saying is correct it still doesn’t refute anything I wrote. Stone can still have backchannel contact with Wikileaks/Assange and give that info to Trump while Wikileaks still publicly gives a few weeks notice of its dumps. Stone has a gag order right now, so we’ll get a better picture of his full involvement in coming weeks. I wouldn’t continue to bet on nothing going on though, that seems to have a bad track record.

Well Wikileaks so far is the only newsource that I know with a spotless record of telling the truth so I think its fiar to assume innocense unless strong evidence proves otherwise.

Also Julian assange is in hiding in an embassy because the US has a secret indicment against him... if he conspired with Trump in the election why in the fuck would he be in the precarious situation he is in? especially since he could obviously destroy Trump's presidency if they indeed conspired.

I think you want this to be true and are not being objective

On February 27 2019 05:09 Loco wrote: I have never claimed or believed that I was sacrificing something because I live according to my principles. I refrain from doing things that I don't have a good reason to do, it's that simple. If I on the other hand behaved according to the status quo then I would be sacrificing my dignity as a freethinker. I never claimed that you were a neoliberal or that you had no empathy. I don't care about your ideas on economics because I cannot place them in any working context or associate them with anyone that works in the field and matters in 2019. What matters in 2019 is to fight against neoliberal hegemony, more than anything else (not just externally but inwardly), and that is the extent to which I support the so-called socialist countries, because it's absolutely essential that the entire world isn't gobbled up by the American empire that is dooming us all to oblivion. It is an insane force, an unconscious death drive, which anyone who is conscious will oppose. The fact is, the closest society to your views that exists right now and "functions" is the US, since somalia is a failed state, and I pointed out that you have previously claimed to admire Milton Friedman who is one of the fathers of neoliberalism, but I didn't call you a neoliberal. Neoliberalism and empathy don't go well together. It's a barbaric economic ideology, no mistake can be made about it. Your idea that poor children in the Global North aren't really poor and that people like me who are materially well off are just ingrates and "champagne socialist", the way that you pigeonhole and denigrate "SJWs" (using that term alone should disqualify anyone from any serious discussion), or trivialize the struggles of LGBT people in Brazil genuinely reflects that you are disconnected from the suffering of others, it is not my invention. You can play your "but you started it" childish game if you want, it just reflects badly on you in more ways than one. I am probably among <0.1% of people my age who have had the luxury to think for themselves full-time for nearly a decade. I have had more free time than anyone I have ever met in my entire life including all internet interactions. I put myself through countless depressions by reevaluating myself and pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. If I am a dogmatic individual after all of this, then I don't know where you could find people who are not, that's all I can say about that.

Sometimes you are unbearable to talk with, veganism is a sacrifice for a greater good, yeah you can say that sacrificing your integrity is worse than sacrificing eating bacon but you get what I mean for fucks sake.

You didn't call me neoliberal you said I fell into neoliberal dogma which is basically the same, unless you are fine with me calling you "fell into communist dogma" instead of calling you a communist, so come on, just acknowledge that you did and stop.

Why do yo say you cannot associate my ideas with anyone that works, you just want to erase anarcho capitalism so bad lol, well to make things easier for you address to my ideas as libertarian. in fact I think that libertarianism should work better than anarcho capitalism, the only reason why I prefer the altter is because I haven't seen an instance where the state didn't grow so it appears like a hard-to-sustain socio-political model.

If the US is the closest thing to my model the USSR is the closest thing to yours... I dont think the US is remotely close to libertarian, the US government is the biggest government in the planet, how in the fuck that is close to minimal or total erradication of the state?

The term neoliberal is a pejorative in the same say the term SJW is a pejorative but I dont say that using it should disqualify you from serious discussion

I dont fucking trivialize the struggles of LGBT people in brazil, you simply say stupid shit about it being worse than in Sharia countries, a very close friend of mine an activist trans girl was kidnapped, tortured and killed a few years ago, unlike you hate crimes against gays is a real thing I've seen up close, not some fucking statistical concept in my bullshit ideology... a stick that you use to hit others and show your imaginary moral superiority, so fuck you and your "minimizing LGBT" crap.

I dont think you are dogmatic as a personal trait, perhaps the contrary, but I think you are trapped into an ideology and can't see things from other perspective

On February 27 2019 23:00 Baalim wrote: Also Julian assange is in hiding in an embassy because the US has a secret indicment against him... if he conspired with Trump in the election why in the fuck would he be in the precarious situation he is in?

because at the moment we still live in a democracy and there's some separation of power between the presidency and the intelligence agencies.

I think you want this to be true and are not being objective

You can search the thread, I know I've stated specifically before that I was 'pro wikileaks', but I change my views based on new information. It looks very likely to me that it has been infiltrated by Russian operatives. Maybe it was always that way or maybe Assange just got paid off at some point so he could just world-travel and have threesomes I don't know. Maybe physical threats or blackmail or some mix of everything. I'm reading through their twitter for the first time in a while and there's some ridiculously suspicious and awful tweets like this one:

On February 27 2019 21:22 Baalim wrote: https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/nacion...nojk9IWVfI6W4RhBnPZ197pMOjmAOdQgrN_hA (news in spanish) So remember I said the governor's helicopter "fell down" after 1 week of the election and I called it an obvious magnicie and Loco said that we should wait for the investigation (lol), well, journalist requested transparency and asked for the communications between the control tower and the helicopter at the time of the crash, well turns out that the federal government just said they are not going to release the coms but only after 6 years, after the presidential term of the main suspect is over. As I said earlier, you just know latinamerica is corrupt but you dont truly understand how, the fact that you think in terms of "investigations" speaks for itself.

I said I also thought it was an assassination, just that you cannot know for certain on the day it happens and most importantly you cannot know who is directly responsible. I don't know the political situation in your country, but think of it like this, if Guaido gets killed in the following weeks, you and the opposition will jump to the conclusion that Maduro ordered it because you are convinced he is a murderous dictator. You probably wouldn't even think twice that the US/the opposition could be responsible and use his martyrdom as a last resort to justify military intervention. And those aren't the only two options.

And really, the only people who know the extent of the corruption and who can speak of it authoritatively are those who are engaged in it or who study it full time for some time. The rest of the population is too biased and uninformed, but of course they can know there is corruption. It's one thing to know of it and another to be able to put it into perspective and competently compare it with what goes on elsewhere. Either way, none of the latin american countries hold a candle to the corruption that there is in the US.

On February 28 2019 00:47 Loco wrote: I said I also thought it was an assassination, just that you cannot know for certain and most importantly you cannot know who is directly responsible. I don't know the political situation in your country, but think of it like this, if Guaido gets killed in the following weeks, you will jump to the conclusion that Maduro ordered it because you are convinced he is a murderous dictator. You probably wouldn't even think twice that the US/the opposition would likely be responsible and use his martyrdom as a last resort to justify military intervention. And those aren't the only two options.

If the US intervenes after the murder I would proably think they are even more likely than Maduro to have killed him, when things like this happen I always look at who wins the most first.


The situation in México was a historic landslide win by morena (very left wing party), they also have 2:1 majority in congress against the rest of the other parties combined and majority in the senate, so they have more control than any party in the last 40+ years (40+ years ago PRI was basically a 1 party dictatorship).

Many gobernors are voted the same day as president, so my state Puebla with over 6 million habitants had very close and caothic elections, Morena lost by a small margin and they cried fraudulent elections so they went to trial.... they lost the trial, about 7 days later the helicopter where the governor was flying fell down.

In the helicopter were two people, the ex-gobernor of Puebla, arguably the strongest politicar oppositor to the current president (Lopez Obrador) and his wife, who was the recently elected governor (nepotism much lol).

The governor candidate for Morena who lost refered to it as magnicide less than 24h after the event, then corrected himself and called it an accident.

--------------

Those are the facts regarding that incident, there is no gain for anybody else that isn't in Morena, obviously the party isn't gong to kill their strongest political figure and his wife to take a jab at Lopez Obrador who in fact didn't recieve any heat since he has total control of the country, in México there are no such things as "investigations" against people that high in power, those are things that only happen in the first world.

On February 27 2019 23:33 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On February 27 2019 05:09 Loco wrote: I have never claimed or believed that I was sacrificing something because I live according to my principles. I refrain from doing things that I don't have a good reason to do, it's that simple. If I on the other hand behaved according to the status quo then I would be sacrificing my dignity as a freethinker. I never claimed that you were a neoliberal or that you had no empathy. I don't care about your ideas on economics because I cannot place them in any working context or associate them with anyone that works in the field and matters in 2019. What matters in 2019 is to fight against neoliberal hegemony, more than anything else (not just externally but inwardly), and that is the extent to which I support the so-called socialist countries, because it's absolutely essential that the entire world isn't gobbled up by the American empire that is dooming us all to oblivion. It is an insane force, an unconscious death drive, which anyone who is conscious will oppose. The fact is, the closest society to your views that exists right now and "functions" is the US, since somalia is a failed state, and I pointed out that you have previously claimed to admire Milton Friedman who is one of the fathers of neoliberalism, but I didn't call you a neoliberal. Neoliberalism and empathy don't go well together. It's a barbaric economic ideology, no mistake can be made about it. Your idea that poor children in the Global North aren't really poor and that people like me who are materially well off are just ingrates and "champagne socialist", the way that you pigeonhole and denigrate "SJWs" (using that term alone should disqualify anyone from any serious discussion), or trivialize the struggles of LGBT people in Brazil genuinely reflects that you are disconnected from the suffering of others, it is not my invention. You can play your "but you started it" childish game if you want, it just reflects badly on you in more ways than one. I am probably among <0.1% of people my age who have had the luxury to think for themselves full-time for nearly a decade. I have had more free time than anyone I have ever met in my entire life including all internet interactions. I put myself through countless depressions by reevaluating myself and pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. If I am a dogmatic individual after all of this, then I don't know where you could find people who are not, that's all I can say about that. Sometimes you are unbearable to talk with, veganism is a sacrifice for a greater good, yeah you can say that sacrificing your integrity is worse than sacrificing eating bacon but you get what I mean for fucks sake. You didn't call me neoliberal you said I fell into neoliberal dogma which is basically the same, unless you are fine with me calling you "fell into communist dogma" instead of calling you a communist, so come on, just acknowledge that you did and stop. Why do yo say you cannot associate my ideas with anyone that works, you just want to erase anarcho capitalism so bad lol, well to make things easier for you address to my ideas as libertarian. in fact I think that libertarianism should work better than anarcho capitalism, the only reason why I prefer the altter is because I haven't seen an instance where the state didn't grow so it appears like a hard-to-sustain socio-political model. If the US is the closest thing to my model the USSR is the closest thing to yours... I dont think the US is remotely close to libertarian, the US government is the biggest government in the planet, how in the fuck that is close to minimal or total erradication of the state? The term neoliberal is a pejorative in the same say the term SJW is a pejorative but I dont say that using it should disqualify you from serious discussion I dont fucking trivialize the struggles of LGBT people in brazil, you simply say stupid shit about it being worse than in Sharia countries, a very close friend of mine an activist trans girl was kidnapped, tortured and killed a few years ago, unlike you hate crimes against gays is a real thing I've seen up close, not some fucking statistical concept in my bullshit ideology... a stick that you use to hit others and show your imaginary moral superiority, so fuck you and your "minimizing LGBT" crap. I dont think you are dogmatic as a personal trait, perhaps the contrary, but I think you are trapped into an ideology and can't see things from other perspective

I get that people who are not vegan feel like vegans are sacrificing something, but that is not true for me and it's not true for many others, especially in the Global North, even for foodies, since they have a lot of alternative options. When you do something for long enough, it just becomes the new normal. It doesn't take willpower. That's all I was saying to you.

You can't understand what I'm referring to when I speak of neoliberal dogma. It doesn't mean that you have the exact same ideology as Friedman and co. It means there is enough overlap, that there is a core of assumptions that you share, and indeed they are the assumptions behind what is called libertarianism in the US too. Neoliberalism is not a pejorative term. It is a disgusting ideology for leftists, but that doesn't mean it's used as a pejorative. Neoliberalism refers to the new economic liberalism of the 70s onwards, defined as a commitment to free markets, privatization, and deregulation. It's essentially the economic component of American libertarianism, which also has a socially liberal component, like LGBT rights, free speech, non-interventionism, pro-drug legalization, etc. SJW is purely a pejorative term, not an ideology.

I said that the US was the closest working model of your ideology. Meaning, as close to your ideology as possible in the world right this very second. If you insist that I'm wrong, then tell me which country is closer to libertarianism as a whole? It's pretty obvious that Rojava is the closest to mine, not the USSR.

I know about her death, you told me very personal details about you and her 9 years ago. It doesn't absolve you of your blatant disregard for LGBT struggles in the past from Bill C-16 to the current events in Brazil. Regardless of what Iran is like, Brazil is a nightmare right now and you claimed otherwise. Sorry, no sale.

I would be immensely thankful if you helped me uncover that I fell into a dogmatic trap, so feel free to do so in a substantial manner.

On February 28 2019 01:21 Baalim wrote: Those are the facts regarding that incident, there is no gain for anybody else that isn't in Morena, obviously the party isn't gong to kill their strongest political figure and his wife to take a jab at Lopez Obrador who in fact didn't recieve any heat since he has total control of the country, in México there are no such things as "investigations" against people that high in power, those are things that only happen in the first world.

Interestingly, we have investigations but when it comes to those high in power, the result is the same. This is because crime is not the violation of the rules, but the stigma attached to those who break rules without the power to make them. Steal $25, go to jail; steal $25 million, go to Congress. Kill one person, get life in prison; abet genocide, get an award. At the height of Genghis Khan’s reign, it would have been pointless to accuse him of breaking the laws of the Mongol Empire. In the US, as long as someone has enough of Washington behind him, the same thing is true. Laws don't exist in some transcendent realm. They are simply the product of power struggles among the elite--not to mention the passivity of the governed--and they are enforced according to the prevailing balance of power. That is how power works, and that's why hoping for significant change from within instead of through grassroots organizations is foolish.

dam you guys are going hard.

The russian-interference in election's scandal is another example of propaganda that i'm talking about. It's a very good case study because there are two thing's you can compare it with. America's interference in elections in other countries and media coverage on them. And the interference from rich elites in America's elections, which is incomparably greater than Putin's could be. The elite's in america share very lttle in class interest with anyone else, on issues like climate chage, employment, taxes. Very little media coverage is on their nterference in the elections, but in a free press like democracy now, that's talked about a lot. And yes Democracy now is socialist, which is a very good thing. that means the journalists own and control the mean's of production. Using it as a scare word does not work baal

The whole Trump phenomenon has had a significant impact around the world, even in New Zealand it's the focus of much attention from the middle class (professionals). Take a look at what the ceo of cbs said about trump, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464. All of the stupid things he says generate money for the media, it's great fpr distracting the public. Meanwhile he is doing exactly what the rich want him to do, spending more money on nukes, less on action to deal with climate change, and less on public services. Actually his nuclear policy has barely merrited attention, but it is completely insane.

On February 28 2019 00:26 NMcNasty wrote: You can search the thread, I know I've stated specifically before that I was 'pro wikileaks', but I change my views based on new information. It looks very likely to me that it has been infiltrated by Russian operatives. Maybe it was always that way or maybe Assange just got paid off at some point so he could just world-travel and have threesomes I don't know. Maybe physical threats or blackmail or some mix of everything. I'm reading through their twitter for the first time in a while and there's some ridiculously suspicious and awful tweets like this one: Also to clear the Roger Stone stuff up, he testified before himself that he had a backchannel to wikileaks, only issue is how direct it was. Stone was specifically trying to prove indirect contact as a way of not having to deal with the consequences of direct contact. https://www.businessinsider.com/roger-stone-randy-credico-text-messages-wikileaks-2018-11 Its really disingenuous from wikileaks to argue as if there was no contact whatsoever, that's why you see carefully worded tweets like how there's 'no telephone calls'.

How could assange bepaid-off?, he has been locked up for years in the Bolivian embassy in the UK, the US is after him, if he helped Trump get elected AND has devastating information against him in his hand why on earth would he be in this situation?