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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Silas is right, the UK doesn't start wars for the sake of pushing hardcore narcotics anymore. That's obvious progress right there.
And Bernie Sanders got further than anyone ever expected, accomplished a great deal, and is about to accomplish more downticket, though he could have done better with what he had.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:30:52 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.See progress.
We even managed it way back then, The West Africa Squadron was our attempt to undo some of the horrible damage we'd caused with the slave trade.[1]
Was it to little to late? Probably, but we still did some good, we may never balance the scales for all the evil we did but I'll be damned if we don't owe it to the world to try.
Yeah because we are the people, thus the people's improvement has meant we've improved and no longer regard such things as okay.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:33:23 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.” ~ CyranSanders ran an average campaign, that got a pretty average share of the vote for the second-to-last candidate in. The professional left and the Internet left fell in love with him but the rest of the party didn't. And the idea that he's going to be a big deal downticket is something I wouldn't hold my breath about, given that he's raised almost no money for downticket candidates until recently (unlike Clinton, who's raised loads of money for downticket candidates) and his influence in the party has waned since he took so long to endorse Clinton.
Moreover, many of those on the Internet who were so fervent about him? Who were so outraged that he didn't win, and are still screaming "fraud"? A lot of them didn't vote for them. Because they were keyboard warriors and their online braggadocio didn't translate into votes or fundraising or campaigning or anything else. Which brings me back to the Kony example. The Kony 2012 people talked a great game on the Internet. They didn't do anything else anywhere else.
@Silas
You guys put an end to the worst aspects of what was going on in the Congo too, once ED Morel's campaign against it took off.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:36:02 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
@bombings
One of the greatest Guignols de l'Info (a French satirical puppet show) episodes was about "selling" the Iraq War to the consumers
(aka making it more acceptable). Obviously, it was exaggerated because satire, but they lampshaded how "surgical strikes" became an expression everyone knew.
Despite, you know, having nothing to do with surgery, or saving lives altogether.
That's because you see the state and state apparatus as a weird independent entity that's got no connection to the people that make up, lead and elect the leadership of, it.
The UK has had a number of brief moments of sanity and kindness throughout history, they're getting more common, once upon a time Iraq would have been business as usual, but in modern times it was the exception that everyone was outraged over, that's progress right there.
It's a dam sight more progress then burying ones head in the sand out of guilt for past mistakes, or locking the doors and claiming that the world is not your problem.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:46:47 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.” ~ Cyran
x5 Sucks for you, then, that I actually did vote for him.
But it's incredibly obvious that you're little more than a Clinton shill. Like, no matter what Sanders does, it's not good enough for you or you try to massively downplay it. Even after it became outright clear that Clinton was the nominee, even after he's endorsed her, you still go on and on about ''the evil of the Sanders campaign!" Besides your argument with Handle about intervention and trying to paint him as pro-genocide (which is stupid, because just 'cause you don't support intervening in every terrible conflict in the world doesn't mean you're pro-genocide), you do nothing but bitch about Bernie and his supporters, and seem to paint them all as misogynistic teens flirting with fads. It's over, Solipsist Owl Ambar. Move on.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:49:41 PM by SciFiSlasher
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."@Elle
It helps when there are only two of you running. Sanders' self-identification didn't hurt him because it was him, Clinton, and the three dwarfs.
I'll also note that Sanders is nothing new in Democratic politics. Eugene McCarthy was the same phenomena to pick one example.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:55:48 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
It turns out that the Kony 2012 campaign didn't make a huge impact, but it was certainly non-null.
It certainly got some attention from Congress
.
@Sci-Fi Slasher
Yes, yes, I'm a Clinton shill. Her campaign pays me millions of dollars to bash the messiah. Never mind that I'm Canadian, or that all the candidates I've ever voted for are to the left of Sanders (something you would know if you'd followed prior conversations in this thread, something you apparently don't do given that you seem to think I just showed up for this election. Been here for a while.).
I love how you think the fact that you voted for him—an anecdote—changes the fact that statistically speaking, most of his most ardent fans did not. That's not even a critique of Sanders as a campaigner—there's no way he ever could have gotten those people to come out and actually vote for him because they never do. That's the whole point of the Internet left, one might say. They talk a good game and take most of the right positions, but they don't actually do anything because that would require moving away from their keyboards.
And I never tried to paint Handle as pro-genocide, which you'd know if you actually read what I wrote (you notice that Handle himself never denied being pro-genocide? Because he didn't have to because everyone involved in the conversation, including me, knows he's not pro-genocide). I said that if I were to take what he said out of context, I could use it to argue he was pro-genocide. I said that to make a point about how he was taking things about Clinton's record out of context.
To bring it back to what's really upsetting you though—no, I don't like Sanders. I think he's a badly flawed candidate that the Internet left latched onto for a variety of reasons, beginning with, but not limited to, ideological purity, sexism and racism (be it deliberate or unconscious), and believing thirty odd years of right-wing propaganda about the Clintons. I think his own record largely went un-examined, and that he's taken on a number of highly hypocritical positions, critiquing Clinton for things he himself once supported. He's not necessarily a bad person, but he's not Christ. He's just another average politician with a decidedly average track record who gave a decidedly average showing in the polls.
edited 14th Jul '16 4:02:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Yeah, my comments were on this thread, not global opinion.
Global opinion, by its very nature, is never black and white/all or none/one and zero. The level of nuance a lot of very well informed people can provide as to why it is good and bad that the US does things is fun and conversation worthy in and of itself.
Small actions ("The Hug" photo in Portland, Oregon, USA) can lead to big swings in those opinions, and I want someday to have a president that begins to treat America as a nation of grownups, telling the nay-saying nay-bobs of negativity to pound sand. Someday. Like a saddle that doesn't pinch the tail.
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Quite. Altruism is mutually beneficial.
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"The Hug" isn't uncontroversial
, but, you know, fuck that guy. Everyone's a critic.
Wouldn't it be nice if every citizen could have access to all scientific publications, rather than just the ones that are currently students in a well-budgeted university?
edited 14th Jul '16 4:04:55 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.Amber you appear to be standing on a bridge for some reason, I advise against it, you may end up giving food to any creatures that dwell underneath said bridge.
Well then it was even more wrong, despite Capase (and occasionally Handle) you'll find that people here are actually generally more then willing to acknowledge when the US does good things.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran@The Handle Oh lordy, that article is just fishing for clicks, isn't it? Well, it probably isn't an "article". Comment section? What is it we call things that aren't subject to editorial constraint and exist only to get a newspaper views?
@Silasw And when commenting on those is germane to the discussion, I'll wave a mug in their direction. I was pointing out that the commentary provided was headed in the "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" direction. In a several thousand page long discussion, I'm only referencing recent talky-bits.
That's fair, I've just seen the "everyone hates the US regardless of what it does and nobody appreciates us but always asks for us to help when shit goes down then yells at us for helping" meme a lot around the internet and even here, it annoys me.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Obama was already moving against Kony when that movement caught on. Giving the keyboard warriors credit for that is silly. It'd be like (and I apologize for the Godwin) giving "Stop Hitler 1944" (obviously not a real group) credit for all Roosevelt and Churchill (and Stalin) did.
If angry college kids ranting about things on the Internet accomplished anything, Bernie Sanders would be getting ready to be sworn in as the unanimous candidate for president.
edited 14th Jul '16 3:26:26 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar