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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It seems like this isn't targetting US citizens (yet...) but visitors to the USA. Including ones from European allies like France and Germany. Which of course is going to further screw the USA's tourism.
Also, I'm not exactly thrilled that this is from TYT (I've been soured on them for a while) or that the linked source in the vid description is the Wall Street Journal (fuck Murdoch — also, there's a subscriber-only paywall thing).
This is kind of personal for me since I have plenty of family members who aren't US citizens who might on occasion want to visit relatives in the USA. The notion that they might be subjected to this sort of dehumanizing and degrading "vetting" in the future...
As if I needed any more reasons to dislike Trump.
Edit:
Going back to Chomsky...didn't he also support and admire Chávez? Wonder how the Venezuelan tropers feel about that.
edited 4th Apr '17 9:29:17 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedSenator Jeff Merkley is five hours into
the filibuster against Gorsuch.
edited 4th Apr '17 9:44:22 PM by Tuckerscreator
Eric Trump admits to being in the White House because of nepotism: http://thehill.com/homenews/news/327244-eric-trump-nepotism-is-kind-of-a-factor-of-life
I'm still unsure as to people will respond the removal of the filibuster.
From my perspective, the smartest thing for Republicans to do would be to fully embrace removing the filibuster, openly brag about it and how it will allow them to push their agenda unobstructed. But the way they're acting so reluctant and regretful about it is just bizarre to me.
Blaming the Democrats for getting rid of the filibuster could come back to bite Republicans, because a lot of people have absolutely no fondness for congressional bureaucracy and "rules." For many, the filibuster is a prime representation of obtuse formality gunking up the legislative process, time that could be spent improving people's lives, and the ruling party claiming that the opposition forced them to clean house is odd. Of course, Republicans will continue talking about how they're trying to be the "mature" and "responsible" ones, but that's pretty damn laughable considering who's president, and he's still more liked than they are!
Or at least, that's how I would spin it.
On the other hand, Democrats are the ones actually using the filibuster at the moment, which obviously doesn't fly with people who still care about "propriety" and just want to go back to business as usual by confirming Gorsuch. But fuck those people.
Here's another source for the Extreme Vetting: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/04/trump-extreme-vetting-visitors-to-us-share-contacts-passwords
And yet still engages in "but America!" in his continued insistence that the only reason anyone paid attention to the Cambodian genocide was to distract from what was happening in Indonesia.
Chomsky, and certain elements on the fringe left, have consistently tried to downplay the crimes of Communist dictatorships, ranging from Castro to Stalin and Mao themselves. We once had someone show up in this thread to insist that Castro was a "hero" for fighting the South Africans in Namibia and Angola, ignoring the very real bodycount of the Communist Angolan government in the process (I should make clear that no, said bodycount does not make the South Africans the good guys; if there was ever a war in which both sides royally deserved one another it was that one).
Some people seem to wake up one morning, discover that America is not a historic force for pure good in the world, and then decide that it's the opposite and they are a force for pure evil, and that therefore everyone who has opposed America is good. Most of them grow out of it by second or third year university. Chomsky never has.
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Chomsky and others on the fringe just seem prone to zealotry. They grow up thinking America is the best thing since sliced bread, and are all about the apple pie, baseball, and the Red White & Blue. Then they learn about America's less proud moments. Rather than moderate their past views they go full on opposite. Then they're all about America being the Great Satan while the likes of Castro and Chávez are held up as saints.
...Okay that's a severe and unfair exaggeration of Chomsky. He did after all endorse HRC during the 2016 election. Though he still framed it in a Lesser of Two Evils manner which doesn't really help that much.
Edit:
Also, downplaying Mao Zedong's atrocities and mistakes?! Who does that? His Great Leap Forward was a fucking disaster that led to millions starving to death and the way he manipulated his country's youth into becoming his thugs as the Red Guard was beyond the pale.
edited 5th Apr '17 12:34:52 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedChomsky and the fringe left never thought Americans were bad just that America's foreign policy operates based off of the mafia principle with America as The Godfather. It's the elites leading the country that are awful.
So the assholes that kiss the ring like Israel, Saudi Arabia, the banana republics, Pinochet's Chile, Saddam's Iraq during the 80's and the rest are to be adored.
And the assholes that spurn us like Cuba, Iran and Venezuela are to be isolated and subject to decades long torture.
I mean look at how badly we mocked France when they wouldn't join the Iraq War with us. We even tried to rename French Fries to Freedom Fries. Now that's really that bad especially compared to what we have done to the rest of the world but we probably would've been much fiercer if they were a weak country. The US is extremely petulant when other countries don't do what we want.
The idea is rather simple: like any other mafia organization, nothing riles up the godfather more than defiance. Apart from hurting his ego, successful defiance might be noticed by other discontented parties, and embolden them into action. So when someone defies in that world, the godfather does not suffice to put them down. He tries to make a lesson out of them, so that, as Iranians say, others keep their swords in the sheath. The history of US invasions comes down to this mentality: Japan, Vietnam, Iraq, all were punished, not because any of them posed a threat to US national security, but for their stubborn disobedience.
As to the travel ban, if one thing holds the banned countries together, it is their defiance to the US hegemony in the world in different periods: Islamic republic in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Assad family in Syria, Omar al-Bashir in Sudan, Yemen after Houthi resurgence. Some of them have already been severely punished: the US army decimated Iraq and turned Libya into a failed state, Sudan and Iran have suffered the most brutal economic sanctions in history. They have little else in common, and none has ever been a direct national security threat to America.
The leniency towards Iraq in the updated version should be understood in this context: fighting ISIS as reason for the exemption makes no sense, because in that case Iran would have been off the list too. What distinguishes Iraq is the way the Iraqi government negotiated over the ban: first, Iraqi prime minister Haidar Al-Abadi in a phone call ensured Trump that his country remains neutral in regional conflicts, and then Iraq agreed to hand over private information of its citizens to the US for background check. In other words, one of the rebels in the mafia world comes around and makes up with the godfather. Exemption from punishment is his reward.
Capone-style sentimentality
American governments, democrats and republicans alike, have displayed a discernible style of breaking defiance: a strange mix of massive brutality at start, and ensuing sentimentality, poured lavishly on villains when they are on their knees. Take Japan and Vietnam: when the godfather makes sure that the villain is devastated, he comes over, give the defeated a pat on the back, helps them up, and calls them allies. No wonder that, of all candidates, Al Capone grew to become the mythical figure of American mafia: a man at ease with murdering everyone he deemed enemy, while eager to help out the families of the victims and contribute to charities.
Now the American voters have elected the closest thing to an actual mafia godfather into office: a brutal billionaire with a checkered past who, to mention only one attribute he shares with a mafia godfather, hides his tax record in his vault. He seems like a gangster boss straight out of a Martin Scorsese film: vulgar, ruthless, dishonest, thin-skinned. He has already shown incredible penchant for revenge, and huge eagerness for mafia-style retaliation.
In that context, Donald Trump is not an aberration. He is the extreme manifestation of an existing foreign policy doctrine - ‘mafia principle’ – and he is determined to release the whole potential of its violent core. The ban is only the beginning: the new godfather on the block will go out of his way to crack down on all forms of defiance, domestically or internationally.
edited 5th Apr '17 1:10:45 AM by MadSkillz
Phil Ochs' song about America being the cop of the world comes to mind:
Quick, get out of the way
You'd better watch what you say, boys
Better watch what you say
We've rammed in your harbor and tied to your port
And our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short
So bring your daughters around to the port
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
We pick and choose as we please, boys
Pick and choose as we please
You'd best get down on your knees, boys
Best get down on your knees
We're hairy and horny and ready to shack
We don't care if you're yellow or black
Just take off your clothes and lie down on your back
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
Our boots are needing a shine, boys
Boots are needing a shine
But our Coca-cola is fine, boys
Coca-cola is fine
We've got to protect all our citizens fair
So we'll send a battalion for everyone there
And maybe we'll leave in a couple of years
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
Dump the reds in a pile, boys
Dump the reds in a pile
You'd better wipe of that smile, boys
Better wipe off that smile
We'll spit through the streets of the cities we wreck
We'll find you a leader that you can't elect
Those treaties we signed were a pain in the neck
Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
Clean the johns with a rag, boys
Clean the johns with a rag
If you like you can use your flag, boys
If you like you can use your flag
We've got too much money we're looking for toys
And guns will be guns and boys will be boys
But we'll gladly pay for all we destroy
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
Please stay off of the grass, boys
Please stay off of the grass
Here's a kick in the ass, boys
Here's a kick in the ass
We'll smash down your doors, we don't bother to knock
We've done it before, so why all the shock?
We're the biggest and toughest kids on the block
And we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
And when we butchered your son, boys
When we butchered your son
Have a stick of our gum, boys
Have a stick of our buble-gum
We own half the world, oh say can you see
The name for our profits is democracy
So, like it or not, you will have to be free
'Cause we're the Cops of the World, boys
We're the Cops of the World
edited 5th Apr '17 1:33:34 AM by MadSkillz
I mean, that would be in the spirit of his 'history' of the Vietnam War where he made claims about the South Vietnamese government without actually consulting any Vietnamese scholarly works, in English or in the original language.
Or that time he argued that the Stalin Note would have TOTALLY WORKED YOU GUYS and it's the West German government's fault reunification took 50 years.
Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.

And in some other good news, the FBI has created a special unit to handle the Trump-Russia connection.