I don't understand how anyone could've learned about citizens united and thought it wouldn't end this way.
it always was like that even before citizen's united. This just made it more convenientI mean obviously it was always happening but this must've made it worse
Dude who ushered in neoliberalism in the US: "wow, you guys sure have a shitty system"
And how long did neoliberalism last? From the early 1980s to 2008 in its entirety? A quarter century or 25 odd years only? With the peak of "end of history" neoliberalism not even lasting a single decade, from December 1991 to September 2001.
Was all the death and destruction that enabled such a system to exist even worth it? Even from the cynical point of view of capital, this seems like an abject failure.
We are still in neoliberalism, though it is waning, aren't we? If it ended, I think it was probably only circa the invasion of Ukraine, which could be taken as a marker for Russia asserting itself as a world power again and violating unipolarity.
In any case, of course the answer to your question is that it was never worth it to us, but always worth it to the rich.
We are at the stage (and have been in it since 2008) in which the old school imperial powers are trying to restore the order of neoliberalism, but are increasingly failing to do so. The invasion of Ukraine has just made that even more apparent than it was before. The bank bailouts of 2008 didn't do much to restore order, sanctions against Russia and China are proving increasingly ineffective, and austerity politics are not steadying the ship as they did in the past. It is impossible to go back now.
its actually a pretty chad move tbh, hard to do much better than being margret thatchers soul from hell admitting that neolibralism is fucked and shit and bad
If he took responsibility rather than just being a condescending prick, you'd have a point.
thanks for the insight on the shit you allow to happen in the first place
Yes, what absolute gall he must have to criticize a system which he personally failed to reform given the opportunity he had during... (checks notes) one term in office over 40 years ago! He'll be the first one sent to feel the embrace of medame guillotine!
He was literally the president. This is like Eisenhower warning people about the military industrial complex. Carter's public image as a humble peanut farmer turned president is just that, an image. Carter fought for "right to work" laws, was hostile to labour organising in his own peanut farm, and began arming what would become the Mujahideen in July 1979, which would then become the Taliban. He helped start the proxy war with the USSR in Afghanistan by arming political Islamic extremists.
As I said, comrade, it's his fault and it's clear for everyone to see that he's a dirty hypocrite liar for trying to imply otherwise. Very terrible president, just like Eisenhower.
So, more-or-less equally terrible or would you say that there's a rough ranking to it? Who's making it into the list of top 10 worst?
You're asking who the best manager was at the factory that turns children into sausages. America itself is ontologically evil and no president can salvage or reform it.
Abraham Lincoln is the closest a president came to being good, and even he was complicit in genocide. Every other president is equally terrible, on a scale of goofy evil to soullessly evil because the office of president is to administer a genocide machine. Jimmy Carter is one of the former presidents who seems aware that he's going to hell when he dies and is probably a little remorseful, but that doesn't excuse him at all. Theodore Roosevelt also seemed aware he was evil, but that might have just been his vanity.
Fair enough, I suppose with 46 of them they all sort of blend together after a point. I too have a soft-spot for Lincoln... so I suppose it's some small consolation for me that we'll one day have a chance to meet each other in hell
At least Lincoln killed some slavers, at the end of the day, so I gotta give him some points for that
Honestly just read Liberalism: a counter History. I lost my soft spot once I realized his philosophical underpinnings weren't any better, he just happened to be positioned in material reality in a way where shitty stuff had small good effects. Critical support was a good idea for him in that time, because he happened to represent a force aligned against the greatest oppressors of the most revolutionary class (the enslaved). But now that he already won, critical support means you can throw him away and realize it was only s tactical correct choice, not any good outside of that
Lincoln least terrible, Trump funniest, Obama the most disappointing,
No Nixon is the least terrible, he had the conscience to resign. Also made the EPA and OSHA, ended Vietnam, created universal dialysis, and opened trade with China. Lincoln still presided over native genocide
This is a half joke fyi
true, we must also take into account his wonderful futurama appearances
I'd put Grant at least terrible -- he was still a genocidier but at least he tried to push through a real reformation in the South after the civil war. worst? I barely know where to start, there's so many good choices.
You have literally no argument nor basis for your beliefs except for incredulity at their antithesis.
Correct. I thought it was a funny conclusion and so I made fun of it. What's the harm in allowing a fool to fool around? I didn't really think I was doing something so grand as threatening to present a thesis.
You aren't threatening, you're just a jackass who is doing the "democratic presidents can't do anything good, but they do their best for us" routine that we've all seen a thousand times
Well, thank you for saying so... sometimes I can get a little self-concious about things like that. Next time I'll try to bring better material!
I'm sorry, 420blazeit69, it seems like nothing I say will ever convince you guys to like me. I'll go back to 2010 where I belong now.
The Carter administration is responsible for helping start one of the most devastating proxy wars in recent history, by arming anti Soviet extremists in Afghanistan in July 1979. Whatever happened to those extremists, one might wonder?
They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and became the world's #1 heroin exporters.
Wonder whatever happened to this guy that the USA helped arm? Did he do anything significant since then?
Show
It's the Northern Alliance that were the big opium producers, under US occupation. The Taliban actually banned and restricted it both before the invasion and after re-taking power.
stop being a fuck trying to whitewash the power of the FUCKING US PRESIDENT
During that one term, he managed to pass a law that took away federal employees' right to strike. Reagan later used this law to fire something like 10,000 air traffic controllers for going on strike. What he managed to do during that one term was deal a massive, if not fatal, blow to organized labor in the US.
Hey, thanks for educating me. I wasn't alive during the 70s and, frankly, not once in my entire life has anyone even thought to have a serious conversation with me about Jimmy Carter's presidency. Now that I know, I know. President Carter really ought to have vetoed that anti-labor legislation!
He was literally the first neoliberal President, and again he was the fucking President! There is a dearth of evidence that he gave a shit about fighting plutocracy from his time in office, especially since his policies tended towards austerity! Maybe if he actually stood for something beyond the will of the ruling class, he would have had a chance at being re-elected.
mate, I know his legacy has been thoroughly whitewashed by the media but seriously, look up what happened in East Timor, Nicaragua, Iran, and Afghanistan and I'm definitely forgetting some coups/counterrevolutions. there's plenty of blood on his hands. there are exactly zero US presidents who haven't conducted or allowed genocide. you don't get to be emperor then clutch pearls at the awful shit people are doing, following in your footsteps.
I am super gringe in person, Melina. You're probably better off pretending a person like me doesn't even exist. Even so, I still hope we two can get along.
Unfortunately, I just don't know enough Japanese right now to be able to pull that off convincingly... Japanese is a challenging language, you know? The thing I struggle with most is Kanji -- a beautiful character system, but so very different from anything I'm familiar with! That's fine, though... if the journey were easy then I think the destination wouldn't really have been worth working for in the first place.
That's a good one! Does Hexbear have a guillotine emoji? Who am I kidding... there must be at least 3 I can choose from, right?
Oh wow, I wasn't actually sure there'd be three of them. Silly in retrospect, I know... by the way, is that a trans rights guillotine? I get that it's literally just a png, but -- hypothetically speaking, if the trans rights guillotine were real -- would it be chauvinistic of me as a cis person to request it? I feel like it might be OK as long as the executioner were trans and could vouch for me, but maybe that's asking for too much?
Well, in any case, thank you genuinely for sharing. This is a very new experience for me and so far it has been very enriching!
Every now and then Jimmy Carter tells the truth, but he's still a pos who helped create neoliberalism and destroyed Afghanistan by arming terrorist groups, ended Nixon's détente with the Soviets and almost invaded Iran.
I remember him saying how the USA screwed up North Korea, that it was the US's fault. He did the same in Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. I think that since he's already 100 years old and no longer has any power or influence within his own party, and most people hated him when he was president, he doesn't care anymore if the CIA is going to kill him. He can just tell the truth and there's no problem. He can just tell the truth and nobody will care.
Well, ok, yes he's right , but...
Wasn't this guy like mayor of Chicago or something back in the day? Didn't he hold some kind of office with real, tangible political power where he might have tried to actually try to do something about this? Going "Wow, you guys are really fucked" decades later doesn't really absolve someone.
No nothing as powerful as mayor of Chicago, he was only the president of the US
"When the devil grew old he joined a convent" is an idiom in my language. It seems fitting for Carter.
Sure but this is a news community. This link is objectively not news
that time obama said VOTE.jpg
We did fucko, thanks for killing us
I love that Jimmy's still out here as a presidential Yoda dropping knowledge bombs at 99.
I love the truth bombs that Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski also dropped in his 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur!
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Amazing truth bombs there. No way any of this could have aged badly since then...
No shit Sherlock. Thanks Citizens United! Legalized bribery and made corporations into legal persons.
take your pick lib
