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I read on another thread that my dear friend the Goblin wished to discuss this issue, so here we go.
Talking points:
1. Should President Obama have committed forces without consulting Congress, such has been done in most conflicts since World War II?
2. Should the United States intervene on the basis of the alleged use of Chemical Weapons?
3. Does the lack of international support impact the validity of United States pending intervention?
Discuss.
1. No.
2. No. Nobody wants them to.
3. Yes. There is obviously something about nobody else wanting to help.
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Hell no, and I don't really know if most conflicts (of the US) since WWII have been unauthorized. At least 'direct' conflicts, vs. funding "freedom fighters" and so on (which the US would certainly consider an act of war if done against it, but for argument's sake, accepting that distinction).
It's not like Congress is full of anti-imperialist, anti-war sticklers for international law. Most of them probably can't tell Libya from Lebanon.
But in this case, there's just so many reasons why this is a bad idea that there's a decent chance they may not approve it.
That is why I actually am writing every Congressman I can to reinforce my opposition and lay out some basic reasons why they shouldn't go along with it.
What we have is the pro-war hawks simultaneously claiming the US as world cop, while saying we aren't the world cop, claiming we must do this because of "red lines", while denying it is our "redline" rather than the world's (never mind the world didn't state such and this actin is still an illegal war of aggression per international law, and that the red line of Obama was "using lots of chemical weapons", not just one attack), while denigrating those countries who don't support beginning acts of war on flimsy evidence (as opposed to champions of human rights like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), while conveniently avoiding to also denigrate the majority of Americans (and otherwise) who are against this war (since that would involve recognizing that the majority of Americans and the world are against said war).
On the current allegation given? Hell no, and when you push for UN investigations for months and months, you should be obligated to wait for the results of those, rather than just rely on intelligence supplied by Israel and the rebels/jihadis who want any backing they can get. Incidentally, any possibility that rebel/jihadi forces could be behind the latest event is simply DISMISSED, not even a pretension of addressing that possibility. Even though the US has been in possession of solid analysis showing previous Sarin attacks with signs of garage-chem lab production, even though other Chlorine attacks have been acceptably linked to rebels (targetting regime soldiers to boot), even though Iraq has recently found al-Nusra chemical weapons labs (al-Nusra also operating in Syria), even though Sarin warhead IEDs were used by al-Qaeda against US forces in Iraq, even though Libya supposedly had chemical weapons stores and weapons have infamously flown out of Libya to other regions including Syria (perhaps under US sponsorship), even though Turkey recently arrested jihadis with chemical weapons (supposedly Sarin), even though rebels/jihadis have bragged about chemical weapons and have videos showing improvised rockets with improvised chem weapon dispersal warheads. And of course it is to the benefit of rebels (or those who militarily back the rebels) to play victim, or even stage a false flag attack... So why not at least address any such evidence? So much more convincing to just present the flimsy evidence and not bother to present reasons why it couldn't be the rebels (of course, proving a negative is supposed to be hard...). When the Chlorine attack happened, it was quickly swept under the rug by the mainstream media as soon as it was clear that everything was really pointing at the rebels using it.
If there is to be any 'redline' for usage of chemical weapons, it should apply equally to ANYBODY, including the rebels. If the world wants to say chemical weapons is a redline if ANYBODY uses them, then there's certainly more credibility to acting when that is proven to the world's satisfaction. What exactly that response is is hardly fixed to what the US seems to be preparing, namely punitive strike on the Syrian regime as a whole, including wiping out their airforce, which of course is largely used delivering CONVENTIONAL weaponry against the rebels/jihadis it is fighting, thus destruction of that airforce is directly aiding the rebel side. If CREDIBLE evidence points to some part of the Syrian army using chemical weapons, then a proportionate responce is directed at only the actors directly linked to it. If somehow some officer used chemical weapons independent of governmental command, that officer should be punished just as US soldiers are punished for war crimes, if the Syrian government itself does that in response to clear facts that would seem a wholly satisfactory solution. So as it happens, there is a huge spectrum of possibilities besides the US' proposed war, despite the war-hawks favorite tactic of saying "you are either with us or you are with the axis of evil".
The idea of rushing this war before any solid evidence can be analyzed is just a joke. Russia has even indicated they are happy to play a part in some consequence if proof of chemical weapons usage and who used them is produced, Russia has in fact funded non-violent opposition parties, and hosted opposition activists (not the Rambo freedom fighter kind) who were subsequently arrested by the Syrian regime when they returned to Syria for conferences, so they are FAR from happy with and fully backing the Syrian regime. If it is truly world opinion that chemical weapons can not be permitted to be used, what exactly is the problem with the world as a whole deciding how to respond together, not with the US/France/Turkey/Saudis dictating the name of the game?
The fact is the US is not just some neutral actor waiting until now to protect human rights. It's been backing the rebels, up to now "supposedly" not directly supplying lethal arms (I'm sure we all believe if any arm of the US government was found to have been doing that, they would be thrown in jail for 50 years... right?), but still backing them including with military training, and 'facilitating' the supply of arms from Saudis and Qatar and Turkey thru Turkey itself and Jordan and the smuggling operation thru Croatia. So it's not just a response to some alleged chemical attack, it is escalating the US' existing backing of the rebels. The US wants to distinguish between 'good rebels' and 'bad rebels', which you can see in play by the US' recent refusal to call a car bomb attacks in Lebanon (killing scores of innocent civilians) a "terrorist" attack... Of course the same 'good rebels' are fully cooperating with the 'bad rebels' in fact providing weapons to them, so any idea that the US or allies can/will back only 'good' rebels but not 'bad' ones will fail simply because the 'good' rebels are happy to arm the bad ones. Given the US is happy to prosecute normal people for donating money to charities who have some tenuous connection to a designated terrorist group, it's hard to see how arming 'good' rebels who them arm 'bad' rebels is not itself an illegal act per US law... but it's OK, because the Saudis said so. And didn't it work out great last time when they worked with us backing international jihadi fighters in Afghanistan? Who would oppose repeating such a successful model of cooperation?
Anyways, the Syrian government has been prevailing over the rebels even with that level of backing, so the rebels need more intervention if the Syrian government isn't going to win, either out-right or in a strong negotiating position. Of course, having both sides fight it out indefinitely could be perfectly lovely from perspective of Israel. If it needs to be pointed out, Syrian government has directly stated that it will not use chemical weapons UNLESS OUTSIDE INTERVENTION OCCURS. So the US bombing could very well lead to the Syrian government saying "f&+~ it", and their widely dispersed artillery units taking out any rebel concentrations with chemical weapons, civilian bystanders be damned. So... should we impulsively declare war based shoddy Israeli/Jihadi sourced intelligence (ignoring anything else that conflicts), or should we ask "Is bombing Syria in a clear act of war itself crossing a redline which may result in use of chemical weapons?" Just like the bombing of Kosovo triggered the biggest flight of refugees, and the later NATO occupation over-saw the biggest episode of ethnic violennce and ethnic cleansing. Whoops. But really, the US and Israeli and Saudi governments just had the best interests of ordinary Syrians in mind.
Turkey backs the US in this, and would clearly love to have international legitimation (thru a coalition for attacking Syria, nobody actually willing to oppose US warfare with force or even legal sanction) to directly attack Syria including the Kurdish forces fighting the jihadis which are being armed by Turkey. Turkish attacks would certainly further enmesh them in a war against Kurds, which cross the border of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
The Saudis and Qatar seem to back the US as well, even offering to pay the US for all it's expenses, and what is more legitimate than mercenaries working for totalitarian oil sheikdoms? And hey, if they're paying for the costs of the war, then that means it's totally free for the US budget right, there couldn't POSSIBLY be future situations created (i.e. regional war) that create future obligations for the US, right? And clearly Libya shows us that arming a bunch of jihadis and providing them air force support it's proven the best way to secure the weaponry of a military regime, ESPECIALLY chemical weapons. You know... all that business about Lebanon, Iraq, and even Jordan being opposed to this... Maybe the US should just expand this bombing campaign to overthrow those governments as well, since if you're not with us you're against us right?
And of course Israel, champion of human rights, shining light upon the world. Clearly, all the people harping about how the US Constitution says only Congress has the right to declare war forgot that Israel also has that right to decide when the US declares war.
And last but not least: Obama won the Nobel Prize before he even did anything, so that means every one of his wars is blessed in advance. Because Alfred Nobel made a bunch of money selling dynamite for bombs!
Every time I go on the internets and read people's take on international affairs and global politics I am amazed at how effectively the educational and media systems have programmed and indoctrinated people to have the "proper" beliefs, attitudes and responses.
It's really amazing, in a 1984-ish sort of way.
They've done a masterful job though. They really have.
How so? You're referring to the majority of people opposing this war, or what?
I honestly find that amazing given that enormous structure meant to control perceptions.
(have you seen the Kerry quote commenting how difficult that horrible internet makes it to govern i.e. control people's perceptions?)
You certainly see that system's effects in the widespread willingness to not even contest the most flimsy of evidence/analysis saying the Syrian Army/Assad regime used Sarin gas in this most recent event, or even address the wider involvement of the US. But still people sense the magnitude of the situation, and aren't willing to back war, even 'harmless' war-by-drone/cruise-missile/jihadi-proxy. No matter how many little lies they can pull off, the big lie eventually cannot be concealed.
I don't want to come off as defending the UN, they've got lots of problems and are often very ineffective. But saying that it was UN intervention that made Bosnia a bad place to live is laughable at best.
Which is why I did not say that. Intervention in Bosnia had its points. Setting it up as a protectorate and not a functioning country, which lead to massive corruption, was the bad part. And you know... The worst part is that the US is very good at not doing that. If they want. You know, Germany. Japan.
I don't want to come off as defending the UN, they've got lots of problems and are often very ineffective. But saying that it was UN intervention that made Bosnia a bad place to live is laughable at best.Which is why I did not say that. Intervention in Bosnia had its points. Setting it up as a protectorate and not a functioning country, which lead to massive corruption, was the bad part. And you know... The worst part is that the US is very good at not doing that. If they want. You know, Germany. Japan.
This is true; S kinda more inferred that the U.S. "military-industrial complex/shadow government/Illuminati/what have you" purposely set out to destabilize the region. The UN is okay; they're just kinda keystone cops. The Ugly Americans are pretty much the root cause of suffering in the world generally, you should know that by now......
Not like this big hatefest that's been festering in the region between Serbs and muslims and Croatians over 500 years. Or 50 years of really really s@@@ty Yugoslavian Communist dictatorship b*~%$+&&.
Naaah. It's all the Ugly Americans' fault for not doing the Marshall Plan 100% right in Mother Russia's backyard.
Not that I give a s**~ really.
I actually find it comical.
I don't blame America for Yugoslavia. I am just saying that if the US had wanted to do well to Bosnia, Egypt and the others, they could have, based on things they did earlier. I see very little that is comical about it.
I would blame the US for Bosnia and Kosovo. Germany probably was more to blame for Croatia, the US just deferred to them there, which is really just as faultable but the impetus there was from Germany even if it was the US behind Operation Storm etc, while the US was the crucial power in Bosnia and Kosovo developing as they did.
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Looking at things from not all that far away (several of my friends who live close to the border came under stray missile fire several times), I can say that the entire matter boils down to this -
It's total chaos in Syria, and any new element introduced to that chaos is likely to make things worse, not better.
Even living really close and constantly keeping pace of what's going on, it's impossible to understand precisely who's fighting who, and why. I would actually wager a fare bit of money that plenty of the armed people in Syria, who take an actual part in the fighting, are not always aware which faction exactly they are fighting and why.
Syria is currently a war zone between races, subsets of religions, and small fanatic armies who compose part of the global Jihad effort. Syria is(was?) a somewhat superficial political construct, it's borders decided by external forces, and wouldn't have existed as it is so far without a dictatorship. As it is, there are just too many different kinds of people in there, and most of them have been repressed by the ruling minority for too long. In addition, the worse of the Muslim world (and that's pretty bad) has funneled to join the war, each tiny faction attempting to further it's goals,and that just makes the entire thing too messy.
If America, or the UN, go in... they are going to be shooting blind, just like everyone else there, except with bigger guns. Nobody really knows what's going on, there's no side of the war to support, and even if there was, American intervention in the middle east only ever had horrible results.
I am opposed to America or any other government sending armed forces to Syria.
Not to sound cold and inhuman, but THIS is the time to intensify the effort of the western world to bring Iran's nuclear ambitions to a halt. When the dust settles in Syria, Iran might be weaker or stronger than it is right now, it's hard to tell, but I'm sure right now they are nervous and on the edge. With one of their strongest allies tearing itself apart and the others busy with that, Iran stands alone for the moment. Perhaps the only way to prevent more death in our world is to focus on what we can do, instead of what we can't. Syria can't be helped from the outside at the moment, but Iran can be stopped.
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Sounds reasonable. Sadly. And if France hadn't decided to send Khomeiny to Persia with a lot of money, Iran would instead likely have been a rich, functioning democracy. This in turn would have meant that oil would have been more expensive, so Iran. Bleh.
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I don't blame America for Yugoslavia. I am just saying that if the US had wanted to do well to Bosnia, Egypt and the others, they could have, based on things they did earlier. I see very little that is comical about it.
Me neither, and i live there. Yugoslavia was falling apart by itself very very well. The U.S. Just aided the side that would give them the most benefits. And supplied weapons to prolong the conflict.
Yes... I don't know if it's the temptation to say "Now that we spent 150 bazillion dollars to pay for a war in this little end of the world, we have to recoup this somehow, let's write in a few real profits in the peace treaties" or whatever, but lately there aren't many conflicts that the US got involved in that did not get worse for it. And seriously, I don't understand this: They know how to get a militaristic, more or less fanatic, previous regional power like Japan to play nice and work on finding some kind of democratic solutions to their issues... but today, turning a profit seems far more important than actually fixing things and reaching the goals that were claimed for the interventions in the first place. Why barge into a country and kill a lot of people "for the sake of democracy" if you then don't even try to institute democratic systems before you leave???
As I said, not what I would call comical.
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You should read up on the Meiji period in Japan. The US did not bring democracy to Japan.
In the 1870's, Japan sent their young, up and coming leaders abroad to learn from the West. They studied Western culture and attempted to adopt some of the forms and structures of those cultures in an effort to present themselves as equals to the powers of the west. The Japanese parliament was established in 1889, and held elections the next year.
While the military and ultranationalism were growing in power during the 20's, it wasn't until the May 15th Incident, when 11 officers assassinated the prime minister (1932) that they really took over.
Fun fact:
It was this incident that directly led to the degradation of the rule of law within the country. The 11 men received light sentences, even though they admitted guilt and had publicly killed a government official.
The leaders of post-war Japan are the ones who wrote pacifism into their constitution, not the US military.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Libya do not have a history of establishing their own democratic governments. You can't force a people to be democratic.
If i remember correctly, Japan has a limit on military strength that was very much written into their laws by the US. Just like Germany.
I am a little confused on why killing people with chemical weapons is so much worse then killing them the old fashioned way. It would be one thing if the scale was dramatically different.
I believe (and please take this as a personal conjecture) it has more to do with the nature of the weapon rather than the killing.
Chemical/Biological weapons are comparatively easy to manufacture and incredibly destructive, requiring very little in the way of technical capacity.
Conventional arms, on the other hand, can kill just as many people, but are much easier to restrict and control on the basis of manufacture availability and technical capacity (ie, it's much easier to keep a chokehold on missiles and machine guns than it is to do so on chemical weapons, if we compare the two on a ratio of availability/kills).
Note that I'm not going for the conspiracy angle here; I think a big part of the international ban on chemical weapons has its roots on the experiences of WWI. But it also seems to involve keeping an oligopole on the killing people department, which has both good (less random leaders/organizations using them as they see fit) and bad (using weapon manufacture as a way to shape international geopolitics and remotely manage foreign conflicts) implications.
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Kinda torn on this.
We (the human race) should act to squash any despot dictator who kills his own people en masse, no matter if its with Saryn gas or bic pens.
I don't know that We (Americans) should be the only ones doing it all the damn time.
I read on another thread that my dear friend the Goblin wished to discuss this issue, so here we go.
Talking points:
1. Should President Obama have committed forces without consulting Congress, such has been done in most conflicts since World War II?
2. Should the United States intervene on the basis of the alleged use of Chemical Weapons?
3. Does the lack of international support impact the validity of United States pending intervention?
Discuss.
1. No.
2. No. Nobody wants them to.
3. Yes. There is obviously something about nobody else wanting to help.
Hi. I wonder how you did all miss that the USA have France's support on this one ? Did your wonderful news networks manage to obmit this piece of fact ?
Chemical weapons have been used, that's a fact. We are quite sure Assad is holding the smoking gun (evidence has been declassified and published on our DoD's website for citizens' perusal). Heck, he even announced beforehand he would use "all" means available to crush the rebellion after a failed attempt to take his life in the forst week of august.
Chemical weapons have been banned since 1925 for good reason. They are more a terror weapon than an effective battlefield one : you see, smell or fell nothing, you just drop dead where you are if you are dosed enough. Using them on civilians to cow them into submission is an abomination.
Well, if the USA don't go, we won't either. We can't do it by ourselves. But you should try a "juste cause" for a change.
There is and was no time limit on Japan's constitutional limits on the military.
There has been continua expansion of the official interpretation of those limits to allow more powerful military forces,
the most recent changes being participation on foreign joint projects / allowance of export of war materials,
and proposals to allow more offensive weaponry or 'retaliatory'/deterrent capability.
The current governing party, which has been the governing party for about 90% of the post-war period,
as well as other nationalist currents, have indicated strong desire to change said constitutional restriction,
but that has not yet occurred. They have proposed reducing the difficulty of changing the constitution in order to achieve that,
but since that itself requires changing the constitution and everybody knows why they want to do that, it does not appear imminent.
Japan has been quietly rebuilding their military by avoiding constitutional issues with terminology and exploiting technological advancements which allow smaller units to do more than they could when WW2 ended.
And they will get the constitution changed. They are recognizing three things:
1. China is aggressively militarizing.
2. The entire part of the world they are part of is destabilizing on a daily basis.
3. They can't trust the USA to help them any more.
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As far as how people have been programmed/indoctrinated, there's no point in detailing the examples here because the people who recognize such things already see it without my pointing it out, and the people who suffer from the syndrome are by definition incapable of recognizing it and will just get pissed off about it if it is pointed out.
I'll just leave it with this. Politics is about one thing in the long run. Power. Anyone who doesn't realize that is naive or ignorant. Even when one nation or another attempts to pursue something close to an altruistic goal, to gain support requires working with other nations that are only interested in their own self-interest and could not care less about altruism. Nations are very much like organisms. They need to secure means of sustenance, need to find shelter and need to provide a purpose for their population. Politics is all about how those endeavors are pursued in a world with limited resources and conflicting ideologies.
One thing Obama's actions in Libya, Syria and Egypt should prove to anyone who is able to deal with reality instead of looking at everything through ideological and partisan filters is that national self interest frequently trumps ideological promises. Obama is and has been doing EXACTLY the things that he campaigned against when he ran for President. While it is easy for those who hate Obama to simply call him an opportunistic hypocrite, even they should take a minute to consider that maybe the reason that the USA tends to get involved in these things is that geopolitics is not checkers, and maybe they don't get to see all the pieces in play.
But that would require critical thought, self-examination and an ability to admit that their ideological biases might be leading them to wrong conclusions.
Which very, very few people are willing to do.
So let me get this straight:
1)"Bush lied...People Died", "There were no WMD's"...even though the Intelligence gathered showed that they were moved to Syria prior to the US invasion of Iraq.
2)Israel bombed a weapons factory a couple of years ago in northern Syria. Radioactive debris was found
3)Suddenly the Left...which demonized Bush wants to Bomb Syria because of WMD use?...I guess it's OK if a Democrat does it.
Neither side in Syria's civil war would be pro US if they won. Let both sides slaughter each other and hope it stays a disunited mess for the next 100 years. They are not worth one us cent or life.
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So let me get this straight:
1)"Bush lied...People Died", "There were no WMD's"...even though the Intelligence gathered showed that they were moved to Syria prior to the US invasion of Iraq.
2)Israel bombed a weapons factory a couple of years ago in northern Syria. Radioactive debris was found
3)Suddenly the Left...which demonized Bush wants to Bomb Syria because of WMD use?...I guess it's OK if a Democrat does it.Neither side in Syria's civil war would be pro US if they won. Let both sides slaughter each other and hope it stays a disunited mess for the next 100 years. They are not worth one us cent or life.
Everytime someone refers to the Democrats as "the Left", I cry.
Everytime someone refers to the Democrats as "the Left", I cry.
Unless you also cry when someone refers to Republicans as "the Right" then you are revealing your own bias right here. In terms of American politics Republicans are "right" and Democrats are "left" in all the standard political terms.
When compared to overall geopolitics both parties are fairly centrist, although both have factions that can get close to their respective edges.
One thing that always makes me chuckle is how few modern liberals realize how centrist Bill Clinton actually was. In many ways the guy was to the right of Mitt Romney.
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Unless you also cry when someone refers to Republicans as "the Right" then you are revealing your own bias right here.
Everytime someone refers to the Democrats as "the Left", I cry.
Uh, I thought that was pretty obvious.
In terms of American politics Republicans are "right" and Democrats are "left" in all the standard political terms.
And then there's the rest of the world.
When compared to overall geopolitics both parties are fairly centrist, although both have factions that can get close to the edges.
True that.
EDIT: Or, rather, they're pretty much the same.
EDIT: Or, rather, they're pretty much the same.
It's all relative. From an extreme left or right view the two parties are indeed pretty close in their actual platforms. This becomes most clear in the USA when the hard left (frequently the eco-Left, but sometimes the anti-religious left) starts frothing at the mouth over some Democratic initiative or the hard right (frequently the libertarians, but sometimes the religious right) does the same about Republican initiatives.
However, having said that, there is a significant difference in real terms between the platforms of the two parties. I can demonstrate the difference as follows:
Republican policies will drive this nation into bankruptcy and ruin before my grandkids retire.
Democrat policies will do the same but at twice the speed.
Other than that, they are pretty much the same.
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Which part of "communist" don't you understand, Adamantine Dragon? =)
And no, compared to a lot of the world, both American parties are staunchly right-wing.
Which part of "communist" don't you understand, Adamantine Dragon? =)
And no, compared to a lot of the world, both American parties are staunchly right-wing.
And compared to another "lot" of the world, both are staunchly left-wing.
Thank you, Comrade Barrister, although, now that the moment has come, I don't really have much to say. I was just more amazed that this subject (and the other one) hadn't been brought up yet, but maybe people are taking a break from politrolling.
I am totally opposed to any armed American intervention into Syria as I am sure nobody will be surprised to discover.
In addition to sharing Comrade Jeff's confusion about why killing people with chemical weapons is so much worse than killing them the old fashioned way (or, more to the point, with drones), I am confused about the intellectual soundness of punishing Assad for killing his own people by dropping bombs on his people.
Well it wasn't entirely altruism for the collective. I wanted to talk about it too. :)
And compared to another "lot" of the world, both are staunchly left-wing.Which part of "communist" don't you understand, Adamantine Dragon? =)
And no, compared to a lot of the world, both American parties are staunchly right-wing.
That's a more difficult one. Certainly, if you compare it to Iran or Saudi Arabia, yes, quite so.
But above all, both parties are so statist it hurts to see it.
EDIT: Or, rather, they're pretty much the same.It's all relative. From an extreme left or right view the two parties are indeed pretty close in their actual platforms. This becomes most clear in the USA when the hard left (frequently the eco-Left, but sometimes the anti-religious left) starts frothing at the mouth over some Democratic initiative or the hard right (frequently the libertarians, but sometimes the religious right) does the same about Republican initiatives.
However, having said that, there is a significant difference in real terms between the platforms of the two parties. I can demonstrate the difference as follows:
Republican policies will drive this nation into bankruptcy and ruin before my grandkids retire.
Democrat policies will do the same but at twice the speed.
Other than that, they are pretty much the same.
I was referring only to their respective foreign policies.
Their similarities on domestic shiznit can wait for another thread.
I was referring only to their respective foreign policies.Their similarities on domestic shiznit can wait for another thread.
Well, it factors in Comrade. Foreign policy is frequently driven by domestic issues.
But since foreign policy is also driven by true national security and national self-interest, it is only reasonable to expect any party within a nation to see similar goals with respect to geopolitics.
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In case Citizen Dragon is somehow unaware, I'll get my biases out in the open:
I am, in theory anyway, an old-school Bolshevik of the Trotskyist variety who believes in the burning need for international proletarian socialist revolution.
In practice, I am a lazy, pot-smoking slacker who only goes to demonstrations to peddle socialist newspapers on the weekends. Real Bolsheviks are full-time revolutionaries. I'm, like, part-time.
Which part of "communist" don't you understand, Adamantine Dragon? =)
And no, compared to a lot of the world, both American parties are staunchly right-wing.
Yep centre right and far right from an Australian perspective.
Well it wasn't entirely altruism for the collective. I wanted to talk about it too. :)
[OHWFA!/Politroll fistbump]
In case Citizen Dragon is somehow unaware, I'll get my biases out in the open:
I am, in theory anyway, an old-school Bolshevik of the Trotskyist variety who believe in the burning need for international proletarian socialist revolution.
In practice, I am a lazy, pot-smoking slacker who only goes to demonstrations to peddle socialist newspapers and pick up HAWT Commies on the weekends. Real Bolsheviks are full-time revolutionaries. I'm, like, part-time.
Fixed that for you Comrade. ;-)
In case Citizen Dragon is somehow unaware, I'll get my biases out in the open:
I am, in theory anyway, an old-school Bolshevik of the Trotskyist variety who believe in the burning need for international proletarian socialist revolution.
In practice, I am a lazy, pot-smoking slacker who only goes to demonstrations to peddle socialist newspapers on the weekends. Real Bolsheviks are full-time revolutionaries. I'm, like, part-time.
What I find interesting is that the difference between your "theoretical" ideology and your "practical application" of that ideology is an excellent example of the practical failings of that theoretical ideology. :)
Peddling socialist newspapers seven days a week is pretty tough.
I know, because I used to do it when I was younger. Burns you out, it does.
These days I prefer to burn out in other ways.
Fixed that for you Comrade. ;-)In case Citizen Dragon is somehow unaware, I'll get my biases out in the open:
I am, in theory anyway, an old-school Bolshevik of the Trotskyist variety who believe in the burning need for international proletarian socialist revolution.
In practice, I am a lazy, pot-smoking slacker who only goes to demonstrations to peddle socialist newspapers and tries to pick up (usually unsuccessfully) HAWT Commies on the weekends. Real Bolsheviks are full-time revolutionaries. I'm, like, part-time.
Fixed your fixing, Comrade Dwarf.
OHWFA!
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There, there, gobbo. Can't win them all. In related news, apparently the police busted a drug-fueled sex orgy at a Freemasons' place somewhere. =)
There, there, gobbo. Can't win them all. In related news, apparently the police busted a drug-fueled sex orgy at a Freemasons' place somewhere. =)
The problem with the self-repressed right they do have the kinkiest sex parties....