Big Picture American Politics

[Lisnaholic]

Thanks for your quick and detailed reply, SGR

If it's ok, I'll just respond to the first points you raised for now:-

I suppose I'd ask, given the suggestion, what makes you think the Russia of today should be considered with the same degree of alarm as America's cold-war era USSR-centric 'domino theory'? Times are different than they were then - not only us (the USA) and Russia, but many other countries have access to nuclear weapons now. And let's look at the geography of Ukraine:



Who would fall next, assuming Russia gained complete control of the country (which is unlikely)? Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, all members of NATO? You think Russia would risk all-out war to expand from Ukraine into NATO countries? And if not, what is the $75 billion dollars the US govt sending to Ukraine really achieving (besides enriching our defense contractors)? Regardless of political party control, I'd much rather use that money for either universal health care, or tightening up/fixing our border rather than spending it on a politically corrupt European country that 95% of Americans couldn't even identify on a map.

When I talked about the domino theory, I didn't mean to give the impression that Russia's advance would necessarily be of conventional troops rolling from Ukraine to the next adjacent country. I meant more the idea that if Putin succeeds in invading one sovereign European country, he may then look round for an opportunity to do it again. As to which one, there are clues in this article, reporting on Putin's speech justifying the Ukraine invasion:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/22/putin-speech-russia-empire-threat-ukraine-moscow

It's long been known that Putin hankers for a lost age of Russian dominance over its neighbours. In his speech, Putin reached back furthur than the cold war to find his grievances. He clearly stated that the processes that lead to Russia's losing territory a century ago must be reversed.  He lamented the loss not of the Soviet Union, but of "the territory of the former Russian Empire".
Putin's warped description of the way countries achieved their independence from Russian rule is aimed at Ukraine, but there is little in it that could not also be applied to Poland, Finland and the Baltic states.

Fair enough to ask why the US should worry about these plans, and luckily it's not my job to put a price tag to America's contribution, but I think it'd be good for them to stay strongly aligned with NATO, and definitely NOT take the Trump line of appeasing Putin at every opportunity.

You're right that Putin would surely think twice before invading a NATO country - but don't forget how much damage (economic/prestige/Russian lives lost) the Ukraine war is causing Russia, and yet Putin plods on with the all-too-familiar Russian steamroller approach to grind down opponents. For NATO, or NATO-adjacent countries, he also has at his disposal various clandestine destablizing techniques - like he used in Crimea, if I remember rightly, so that he can (im)plausably claim to enter part of a country to safeguard Russian citizens,etc. 

Comparing Trump to Kim as a 'dictator' is simply disingenuous, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're simply joking.

^ If anything that was more like a typo, I'm afraid: a word I wasn't paying much attention to while making a point about who was taking advantage of who. In retrospect, I should've put "head of state". My apologies.

[SGR]

Thanks for your quick and detailed reply, SGR

If it's ok, I'll just respond to the first points you raised for now:-

When I talked about the domino theory, I didn't mean to give the impression that Russia's advance would necessarily be of conventional troops rolling from Ukraine to the next adjacent country. I meant more the idea that if Putin succeeds in invading one sovereign European country, he may then look round for an opportunity to do it again. As to which one, there are clues in this article, reporting on Putin's speech justifying the Ukraine invasion:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/22/putin-speech-russia-empire-threat-ukraine-moscow
Fair enough to ask why the US should worry about these plans, and luckily it's not my job to put a price tag to America's contribution, but I think it'd be good for them to stay strongly aligned with NATO, and definitely NOT take the Trump line of appeasing Putin at every opportunity.

You're right that Putin would surely think twice before invading a NATO country - but don't forget how much damage (economic/prestige/Russian lives lost) the Ukraine war is causing Russia, and yet Putin plods on with the all-too-familiar Russian steamroller approach to grind down opponents. For NATO, or NATO-adjacent countries, he also has at his disposal various clandestine destablizing techniques - like he used in Crimea, if I remember rightly, so that he can (im)plausably claim to enter part of a country to safeguard Russian citizens,etc.

^ If anything that was more like a typo, I'm afraid: a word I wasn't paying much attention to while making a point about who was taking advantage of who. In retrospect, I should've put "head of state". My apologies.

Damn Lisna, didn't expect you to reply to me so quickly! - so I made some edits to my initial post now that it's morning and I'm less sleepy than I was when I wrote up the reply last night 

When you've finished your full reply, I'll reply in turn with more detail - in principle, I'm not against the idea of sending aid and resources to assist Ukraine in fighting Russia - but my general fear at this point is, as exhibited in one quote from that article ("It may be too late to save Ukraine"), we may have reached the point of diminishing returns. And sending more billions to Ukraine may only delay the inevitable and be an exercise in the sunk-cost fallacy. I think we all know that America/NATO isn't going to send in troops, and as a result, Putin knows he can just push until we reach our limit (or I suppose, until he reaches his, but as you can see, he's willing to expend a lot more in reaching his limit than we are). The US might have thought that we could entrench Russia in a quagmire that drains their pocketbooks (which isn't a bad approach for a geopolitical enemy, if it works) and humiliate them like we did when the USSR invaded Afghanistan (we provided aid to Afghanistan, and armed/trained the Mujahideen, which kinda blew up in our faces, as Osama Bin Laden was among those we trained) - but it's certainly appearing like we're the ones getting our pocketbook drained and it doesn't appear to me that Russia will simply leave Ukraine like they left Afghanistan.

If Trump was in Biden's shoes when this all went down, I don't know that he'd simply appease Putin - I'm sure it wouldn't have gone down the same way though - perhaps Trump would've been more concilliatory to Russia - but perhaps that wouldn't have been a bad thing in the long run (again, all speculation) if we see that Putin ends up with the same territory he wanted (and maybe perhaps more) regardless, at the expense of tens of billions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of lives fed to the meat grinder of war. Trump has threatened to leave NATO in the past, but I don't think he's serious about that - he's just using those threats as leverage to make EU/NATO countries pay more. And I don't really disagree with him. I think we all know that when it comes to the security benefits that NATO provides, it's not the USA reaping most of the benefits, given our geographical location - it's the countries in Europe, where most of our geopolitical enemies are situated closer to. For America, NATO provides influence/power. America gets to be the big brother to many little brothers, and if some thugs try to take our little brothers' lunch money, we're obligated to go and kick their ass. And in turn, our little brothers allow us to peddle our influence and interests overseas, and help us bully others if we choose to (like we did with Iraq). What's more valuable, the influence NATO provides America, or the security NATO provides other countries? I guess it all depends on which country you ask.

[Marie Monday]

I haven't read the whole discussion properly but I take issue with what you say about the US sending aid. It feels like you shrug your shoulders too much about something as horrible as countries being invaded by a dictator. Imagine if you were in that position. It may be that the aid will be for nothing, but out of principle alone you cannot just sit and watch that happen without helping, in my opinion.
I agree that Europe should lean far less on the US for protection, but this is the kind of serious situation where it's necessary to rise above that, at least until the conflict is over. It reminds me of the lord of the rings scene where Rohan asks for Gondor's help (or the other way round, whatever) and the king starts whining BuT TheY diDnT HeLp uS ThAt oNe TiME...

[SGR]

I haven't read the whole discussion properly but I take issue with what you say about the US sending aid. It feels like you shrug your shoulders too much about something as horrible as countries being invaded by a dictator. Imagine if you were in that position. It may be that the aid will be for nothing, but out of principle alone you cannot just sit and watch that happen without helping, in my opinion.
I agree that Europe should lean far less on the US for protection, but this is the kind of serious situation where it's necessary to rise above that, at least until the conflict is over. It reminds me of the lord of the rings scene where Rohan asks for Gondor's help (or the other way round, whatever) and the king starts whining BuT TheY diDnT HeLp uS ThAt oNe TiME...

War is obviously very complicated. I don't mean to downplay the horror of it all, or the horror the Ukranians feel and felt as Russia invaded them.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I'm not against sending aid to Ukraine in principle. Looking back at some of my posts, I phrased some things poorly in a way that may have given off the impression that I'm completely against all of the aid we've sent to Ukraine - my mistake, as that's not what I believe.

Russia is a geopolitical enemy of the US, and their invasion of the Ukraine is against our interests and our collective ethical standards. If we decided to completely abdicate our opportunity to help Ukraine and sat with our thumbs up our ass, Russia may have already taken over the entire country. So there's no question that the aid we've given will not be for nothing. But at what point will continued aid make no difference to the end result?

If Putin realizes there's no way he's going to be able to take total control of Ukraine with Russia's dwindling military strength, and the US/Ukraine realizes there's no way to take back from Russia everything that's been lost without ground troops from the US/NATO (which isn't going to happen, as it would risk escalating the conflict far beyond what we're willing to sacrafice), then it's time to send in the diplomats (instead of more billion dollar aid packages) to negotiate how we can end this. Are we at that point yet? Maybe. Maybe not. But I have a feeling we might be, and if we are, then any death past this point is for nothing.

This discussion reminds of that hilarious George Carlin bit

[DJChameleon]

War is obviously very complicated. I don't mean to downplay the horror of it all, or the horror the Ukranians feel and felt as Russia invaded them.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I'm not against sending aid to Ukraine in principle. Looking back at some of my posts, I phrased some things poorly in a way that may have given off the impression that I'm completely against all of the aid we've sent to Ukraine - my mistake, as that's not what I believe.

Russia is a geopolitical enemy of the US, and their invasion of the Ukraine is against our interests and our collective ethical standards. If we decided to completely abdicate our opportunity to help Ukraine and sat with our thumbs up our ass, Russia may have already taken over the entire country. So there's no question that the aid we've given will not be for nothing. But at what point will continued aid make no difference to the end result?

If Putin realizes there's no way he's going to be able to take total control of Ukraine with Russia's dwindling military strength, and the US/Ukraine realizes there's no way to take back from Russia everything that's been lost without ground troops from the US/NATO (which isn't going to happen, as it would risk escalating the conflict far beyond what we're willing to sacrafice), then it's time to send in the diplomats (instead of more billion dollar aid packages) to negotiate how we can end this. Are we at that point yet? Maybe. Maybe not. But I have a feeling we might be, and if we are, then any death past this point is for nothing.

This discussion reminds of that hilarious George Carlin bit

I agree so much with your last paragraph. We have already sent so much aid, it's definitely past the point of trying different tactics.

[Psy-Fi]

Rand Paul Slams Deficit Spending, Dismisses Spending Bill As 'A Porkfest Of Epic Proportions'

[Lisnaholic]

Your comments on the Trump/KJU photo op:-

I can see how the back and forth in optics could make the US look frivolous/inconsistent, won't argue that (though I would say that if the US was successful in making meaningful/long-lasting headway in negotiations, no one would care about that inconsistency). The bold is where I'd disagree - that's simply speculation. Not much harm has been done because Biden's in now and we're currently back to our normal routine of international disinterest and saber-rattling? Or I suppose - as you put it, simply not trusting them. The implication is that harm would have been done if Trump remained in office and continued to try and build rapport and negotiate with them - which is the speculative part - we just don't know.

^ It's true of course that any "what if"s are just speculation, so perhaps I went too far if I presented those as facts.

[SGR]

I agree so much with your last paragraph. We have already sent so much aid, it's definitely past the point of trying different tactics.

Agreed. It's terrible what's happened, and my heart goes out to all the families of people who have died, but at some point, this war needs to end, and it will likely mean, at this point, negotiations and compromise.

I'd extend my skepticism of continued aid to Israel as well, but for (obviously) totally different reasons from Ukraine (as they are very different situations). Again, I'm not against providing them monetary aid in principle. But I think that politically and vocally supporting our ally, Israel, is substantively different from giving them our money. Do we have to support everything with money? I guess I just get the feeling sometimes that it's always an automatic "we give you money". Why does it never seem to be: "Alright, we'll provide logistical support and share intelligence, and if you can't find the funds or can't continue without our financial support, let us know, and we'll see what we can do" - it always seems like when there's a problem, we're just throwing money at it (again, I'll stress, this situation is different from Ukraine). Just feels like we (America) are usually the ones stretching our budget and increasing our debt. Why can't Israel increase its own debt if it wants to continue waging their war on Hamas/Gaza? Me and you are both Americans, and neither of us had anything to do with what happened in Gaza, so why are you and I paying for it, when it seems to me like Israel could pay for it themselves?

[DJChameleon]

Agreed. It's terrible what's happened, and my heart goes out to all the families of people who have died, but at some point, this war needs to end, and it will likely mean, at this point, negotiations and compromise.

Why can't Israel increase its own debt if it wants to continue waging their war on Hamas/Gaza? Me and you are both Americans, and neither of us had anything to do with what happened in Gaza, so why are you and I paying for it, when it seems to me like Israel could pay for it themselves?

Why can't other countries that claim they are allies pony up as well? Some of the other countries that are part of the UN.

[Guybrush]

Why can't other countries that claim they are allies pony up as well? Some of the other countries that are part of the UN.

The UN is (also) giving money to Gaza.

"The United States has been a major donor, providing more than $5.2 billion through USAID since 1994.

The international community has sent billions of dollars in aid to the Gaza Strip to provide relief to the more than 2 million Palestinians living there. From 2014 to 2020, U.N. agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, aid to Palestinians totaled over $40 billion between 1994 and 2020."

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians

Edit:

Sorry, thought it was about Gaza aid. My bad.

[Psy-Fi]

Tucker STUNNED As Tulsi Gabbard Revels Who REALLY Runs America

[Marie Monday]

I'm hoping either that's ironic or that the title and avatar belie the video's content

[Lexi Darling]

I'm hoping either that's ironic or that the title and avatar belie the video's content

I'm hoping it's an April fools joke.

[Lisnaholic]

Hi, SGR ! There's not much action in the music threads this morning, so I thought I'd look at another of the many points you raised in your recent long post:-

I don't know what news sources you consume, or how deeply you pay attention to American politics as a Brit - I wouldn't blame you if you only lightly paid attention to it as an occasional entertaining sideshow - because honestly, with our dishonest media and politicians, it deserves only sideshow consideration most of the time - but I disagree with your assessment here. Trump didn't humiliate our country in this event, despite what the media said. This was about Trump believing Putin over his intelligence agencies that Russia didn't meddle/interfere in the 2016 election. Eventually, after two years of constant media coverage and claims about Russian collusion and Trump being a Kremlin puppet, the big find was that evidence came out that there was some Russian bot farm operation on Facebook (that, to my recollection, was never tied to state actors) that posted lame US election memes that were never proven to have any real effect on the election or the voters.

If you don't know this already, most of our popular American news media companies are professional liars who receive their talking points from American intelligence agencies. They all get the same basic scripts which is why it all sounds so similar most of the time (and with enough media repeating the same lies over and over again, people will begin to believe it) - here's an example compilation of American news media reports about the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco:

I think you are making an unwarrented deduction from this YouTube clip, or, put another way, the clip doesn't illustrate the point you are making. Yes, I'm sure that official sources put out press statements all the time, but I imagine that journalists, where possible, balance the official line with any other evidence they have available. After all, fact-checking and investigative journalism are also fundamental elements of the media that you seem to be willfully ignoring.

Do you imagine that there was an official release about "the walls are closing in" that every journalist slavishly copied word for word ?! To me, what the clip shows is that if a cliche or metaphor fits, more than one journalist is going to come up with it, either independently or perhaps copying from another news broadcast, "ooh that's a good phrase: let's use that". That's what makes clichés popular; they give quick succinct summaries of situations.
Another phrase I repeatedly heard in American news stories was about Republican doubts after Roe vs Wade was overturned: "The GOP are like the dog that caught the car." Do you remember that one? Or perhaps it was mainly used by only one side in the great abortion debate.
Anyway, just because journalists are using the same metaphors, that doesn't justify the supposition that the metaphor was fed to the media by the American intelligence agencies. Also (in bold) you move from "basic script" to "the same lies" giving the impression that the basic script is by definition a lie. That's something I would dispute: some basic scripts (as you mention elsewhere) have been shown to be lies, but I imagine that many are not. 

[SGR]

Hi, SGR ! There's not much action in the music threads this morning, so I thought I'd look at another of the many points you raised in your recent long post:-

I think you are making an unwarrented deduction from this YouTube clip, or, put another way, the clip doesn't illustrate the point you are making. Yes, I'm sure that official sources put out press statements all the time, but I imagine that journalists, where possible, balance the official line with any other evidence they have available. After all, fact-checking and investigative journalism are also fundamental elements of the media that you seem to be willfully ignoring.

Do you imagine that there was an official release about "the walls are closing in" that every journalist slavishly copied word for word ?! To me, what the clip shows is that if a cliche or metaphor fits, more than one journalist is going to come up with it, either independently or perhaps copying from another news broadcast, "ooh that's a good phrase: let's use that". That's what makes clichés popular; they give quick succinct summaries of situations.

Thanks for calling it a 'long post' instead of a 'long rant'.

I will concede that you could make a case that the frequent use of "the walls are closing in" seen in that clip was perhaps just a strange coincedence, or a domino-effect of 'monkey-see, monkey-do' instead of a more centralized and coordinated influence effort. Here's another compilation that better demonstrates my point - and it also demonstrates that it's not just faux-news entertainment like Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, but it can filter all the way down to local news stations as well:

Another phrase I repeatedly heard in American news stories was about Republican doubts after Roe vs Wade was overturned: "The GOP are like the dog that caught the car." Do you remember that one? Or perhaps it was mainly used by only one side in the great abortion debate.
Anyway, just because journalists are using the same metaphors, that doesn't justify the supposition that the metaphor was fed to the media by the American intelligence agencies. Also (in bold) you move from "basic script" to "the same lies" giving the impression that the basic script is by definition a lie. That's something I would dispute: some basic scripts (as you mention elsewhere) have been shown to be lies, but I imagine that many are not. 

I did not explicitly remember the 'the dog that caught the car' metaphor, but upon Googling it, it appears you're right - it was a phrase that was used relentlessly. I think you make some important distinctions here that I'd like to expand upon with my own thoughts. I don't think everything the news media says is a lie. Sometimes what they say is true, other times what they say are half-truths (missing important context), and other times what they say are just outright lies. The problem then is that you, the viewer/consumer of the news have no real way to know how to identify between the truth and the lies. You might say, as you referenced in your post, well that's what the fact-checkers are for. But what happens if the fact-checkers are wrong? You may remember a famous recent example of the COVID-19 lab-leak theory that was initially 'debunked' and treated as a 'conspiracy theory' by fact-checkers and news outlets alike, and it remained that way, with Facebook even banning posts that implied it was man-made, until all the smoke blew over and the fog of war was lifted. Now, whether or not it was man-made and came from a lab-leak is something that is no longer treated as a conspiracy, but a real possibility. I'm sure we all question why this happened - my pet theory is rather simple; too many powerful people in the corporate world and the government have big financial interests in China, and if the lab-leak idea was allowed to be broadcast fully, it would've pissed China off and built a shitload of resentment towards China from average Americans - and as a result, a lot of powerful people would've lost a lot of money. Even during COVID, there was talk of the need to decouple from China and not be so reliant on them (especially for things like prescription medication), but I don't hear that talk basically at all anymore. As with many awful things our government does, the truth comes out long after when very few people care anymore, and thus there's very little public outrage about it. As the famous quote goes: 'A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes'. Or, as Mark Twain put it: 'It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.' So who fact-checks the fact-checkers?

If the news media was a personal friend of mine, I'd take anything they told me with a grain of salt - because they've proven to me that they can't be relied upon to consistently tell the truth - which means they're not credible. And I'm guessing many Americans feel the same way given the massive decline in trust of the media.

To bring it back to the CIA, if you'd concede that the CIA does have the ability to influence what our news media tells us, then it'd be very similar to what I said about the lies. I won't have a way to know, as the viewer, if what I'm hearing are the independent thoughts of a news reporter/news agency, or an echo of CIA-fed propaganda (we had plenty of that with Iraq and the WMDs). To your point, even though CIA-influenced media narratives might be true (or truthy), it doesn't make them any less propaganda. There'd be a very specific reason why the CIA wants a particular message broadcast. And the reason might even be a good one (broadcasting a correction to a false story spread by our geopolitical enemies to destablize us internally) - but it also might be a bad one (broadcasting the Chinese persecution of the Uyghurs to encourage Americans to go to war with China [hypothetical]). The stories and messages that are broadcast shape public opinion - and that's just a basic understanding of propaganda. And of course our government and intelligence agencies recognize its power, down to even the language that's used. It's why we have the understanding of the Fourth Estate.