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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yes, the entire military dictatorship movement in Latin America, instigated and supported by the US was an enormous dick move to guarantee their political interests. Speaking only for myself as a brazilian, the military dictatorship here was awful, and I can only imagine it was just as bad in other countries as well.
My attitude is that while Kissinger has his accomplishments, his overall tenure as Secretary of State has far too high a bodycount for him to be the benchmark to which other Secretaries of State should aspire.
When Bense made that comment about Clinton not being a Kissinger my first thought was "oh, you mean she hasn't supported neofascist coups in South America? Good on her."
Opening up China does not erase a death toll that, once you factor in the South American juntas, Suharto, and the Pakistani civil war, is into the millions, particularly given that what good accomplishments he does have, did not require that he do so.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:03:44 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Echo chambers do bad things, especially when said chambers don't need puny facts to back them up. When people are assured they're right, hearing it from other people over and over again regardless of who these people are will just reinforce them, rather than encouraging them to learn. That's how Sanders has got so far despite his economic policy (immigration = bad because they take jobs, free trade = bad because it's a corporate conspiracy, $15 minimum wage on top of Canada-tier social safety net = good because inflation and PPP adjustment don't real, anyone with ties to corporations = bad because they're all in on the conspiracy) being total nonsense that's been rejected by almost every economist. That's also how Trump has gotten as far as he has.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:24:42 PM by Nihlus1
In all due fairness the guy who came before Pinochet was a bit like the Boliviarans that ruled Venezuela. And it wasn't know that Pinochet would be that bad. Still, as shown by the actual Boliviarans, by far the best thing to do when dealing with Commies in South America is to let them run their own nations into the ground, and thus teach the populace not to elect those groups, instead of seeing them as heroes defying dictatorships. I am no Kissinger fanboy, in particular I find his fixation on Austria Hungary puzzling given that they "lost". And I find his pissing off of the world's largest democracy, driving it straight into the open arms of the Soviet Union, in support of a tyrannical Military Dictatorship with a much smaller populace and economy to be dubious strategically at best.
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Not everyone on this dam thread backs Bernie, Fighter and myself are some of the many who are skeptical of the man.
Edit: Oh and I forgot his part in Nixon's little scheme to sabotage the peace talks with North Vietnam. The man can go fuck himself.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:29:39 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.2. When did I say everyone here was going to vote for Sanders?
I just said that this thread seems like something of an echo chamber, and that echo chambers are how you get your Bernies and your Donalds. What is it that Ach said earlier? Something about Sanders fulfilling the same niche as Ron Paul? That's basically correct.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:37:41 PM by Nihlus1
Turning into? It has been for a while, I'm in my third year of a degree in Politics and International relations and we've had serious debates about how similar the morality behind the invasion of Iraq was to the early crusades (I think the first one), here's a Bush quote (that I should point out has been claimed to be false, but the evidence does indicate that it or something similar was once said by Bush at a diplomatic meeting), 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."
This thread largely echoes a willingness to discuss and debate politely and respectfully, there's a reason it's not just the far right that aren't in here, the far left are also gone, the anarchists and the racists are both pretty bad at debates politely.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:38:25 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThat's a pretty cold whataboutism. Just because a place was bad before someone fucked it up doesn't mean that making it worse is justified on the grounds of realpolitik. Understandable, maybe, but not justifiable.
I see this logic also being applied to modern-day Middle East and it bothers me.
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.Uh huh.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:45:51 PM by Nihlus1
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And because Pinochet came after him, he gets to be a maryter and a hero to millions of young commies in Latin America and around the world.
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We did not try to settle Iraq with our citizens nor export our religion, unless one considers free market capitalism our religion, and we did want to leave, I think the original plan was to be out within a year or two as opposed to carving out a Christian state.
The Crusades occurred about 300 years to late to be a reaction to the invasion of Jerusalem. If they were a reaction to any military event it would be the battle of Mackinzert.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:42:39 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.![]()
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Actually at the time as much as 40 percent of the population may have been Armenian Christian.
All Argentinians are crazy in some sort of way, but it is doubtable that even the most fanatical of leftwing governments would have though invading the Falklands would be a good idea.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:47:50 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.x6
Never said they should have been stuck with the socialist system.
But, strawman aside, you do realise that a failing economy is not worse than mass-murdering, torture-happy military junta, right?
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:48:26 PM by LogoP
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.For the record, I'm not a democrat, or a liberal. Not a Republican or a conservative either. Nor am I a libertarian <shudder>.
But on the issues I'm professionally knowledgeable on (foreign policy) I expect a president to not be a moron or capitulate to polling data or ignore it outright in favor of domestic policies.
And fuck Kissinger and all the bullshit he stands for. He singlehandedly caused so much bullshit for twenty years or so, the effects of which we still feel. I almost didn't know my grandfather thanks to that jackass, and it was all for short term bullshit.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:59:22 PM by Nihlus1
Allende was democratically elected. He was in fact, very proud of being a democratically elected Communist, and as proof that you could have a revolution without having to kill anybody. Pinochet's coup not only overthrew forty-eight years of democratic rule in Chile, and not only saw the deaths of thousands of people, but ended up convincing Marxists worldwide that democracy would not be allowed to work for them and that they'd have to turn violent.
As for the notion that Kissinger practised realpolitik, I find that a crock. Saying that would imply that what he did was in some way necessary to protect American interests, when in many cases, even that justification falls flat. Killing Allende and installing Pinochet did not in any way, shape, or form, make the USA safer, or contribute to the demise of the Soviet Union, or for that matter, achieve anything else of any benefit to the USA. It was an ideological move, pure and simple, driven by a rabid dislike of anything that even smacked of "Marxism". Support for The Process was driven by the same ideological factors, as was backing for Suharto, Pakistan, and every other military junta Kissinger ever got Nixon and Ford to throw their weight behind.
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So in your mind, killing thousands of people is better than letting the economy stagnate? Good to know.
edited 3rd Feb '16 2:51:52 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Are we to judge Kissinger on a "scoreboard" sort of method, or are we going to give him a likert scale on the atrocities to make two differential scales of "People he hated" and "People he was k with"?
Kissinger did detestable things. This does not erase the good things he did. Kissinger did good things. this does not erase the detestable things he did.
In my mind, I cannot really think well of someone who was willing to do such detestable things. Letting South America get fucked just so I can deal with Russia peacefully is not a really good excuse for what he did, especially because that is pretty much giving him way too much credit without taking into account the Russians played their part a lot too.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes