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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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Impossible: Kissinger was always a Republican, and publicly supported Nelson Rockefeller's Presidential Runs in 1960, '64 and '68, and only gained power in '68. The Vietnam War (or at least, the US's involvement with said war) started with John F. Kennedy (when he assassinated South Vietnamese "President" Ngô Đình Diệm, who was tyranical and trying to turn South Vietnam into a Catholic Fiefdom). Kissinger did convince Nixon to escalate the Bombings in the region to include Cambodia and Laos as a way to fight the Viet Cong in the region, but he also helped Nixon with Vietnamization (IE, American Withdrawel from South Vietnam), and negotiated with the North Vietnamese for the temporary ceasefire in 1972.
edited 12th Jan '17 2:13:58 PM by DingoWalley1
~justhelping: Well, yes, but if you want to convince us that Trump is not pure evil you'll be in a hard time.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman@~justhelping: Define 'Republican'. Do you mean 'actual conservative', someone who is concerned with avoiding rapid change and preserving systems while improving them rather than blowing them up every 5 years for the sake of change? Because right now that is most of the Democratic Party, and has not been present among the GOP since 2010. While there are some sane and competent people at the State and Municipal levels running on the Republican ticket, every elected official at the national level is currently a regressive, reactionary bigot or willingly complicit in the same. Even the best ones like Mc Cain, Graham and Collins are still mostly toeing the polarized, partisan lines in the sand; and you can be sure of some strong emotions, since they just voted to strip health care from millions of people who cannot afford to pay for it, period.
If you have anything to contribute, by all means-that said, links to reputable sources are welcomed, and expect assertions to be examined and refuted in the absence of evidence.
edited 12th Jan '17 4:11:19 PM by ViperMagnum357
For about ten minutes today, C-Span inexplicably switched to RT, the Russian propaganda network.
Right as one of Trump's most vocal critics was speaking.
The network says it was most likely a routing error, but even if it is exactly that benign, you have to say it's one of those "how chillingly prophetic" moments.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."And Trump isnt "pure evil". He is corrupt, probably incompetent, and unfit to hold public office, but he hasn't actually done anything yet. For all we know, he could be all talk and no action. My reading of him is that he has a masterful command of symbolic gestures, but is also highly risk averse. I personally dont think he has the guts to do anything truly extreme.
@Justhelping: Welcome to the thread, and please feel free to share your opinions (though, please do mind the debate guidelines
. I look forward to discussing politics with you.
edited 12th Jan '17 4:22:36 PM by DeMarquis
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.@Justhelping: from personal experience as a republican here: yes, but be polite and expect disagreement.
I myself am a "nonliteral" conservative of sorts who doesn't dislike social change, but views the idea of a "progressive" society differently than most progressives.
Leviticus 19:34I wouldn't touch Trump with a ten-foot pole- his particular brand of republicanism isn't my piece of cake. One of his only stances I *might* see eye-to-eye with him on is border security- I've looked at how, for example, refugees coming to Germany and their failure to integrate is hurting native Germans. I'm not out here saying hang the blacks and throw the gays and Muslims in camps.
Besides, I guarantee you that those refugees are hurting a lot worse than the native Germans are - or probably ever will.
Also - in addition to the strange C-Span/RT thing, apparently the power went out at a CIA hearing, and MSNBC started stutter-looping right in the middle of the word "Russia."
This may all be coincidence and paranoia, but I also hear that Russian hackers can be notoriously mischievous.
edited 12th Jan '17 5:14:53 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."The Germany situation is complex and has a lot more to do with Germany's very relaxed aproch to anyone claiming asylum regardless of legitimacy, throw in a small number of bad apples and a pre-existing non-integrated population with its own issues and you get a big old mess.
Better border security sounds good, but you're getting more illegal imigrants via people overstaying visas than folks hopping the border. So you'd be looking at internal enforcement aimed not at Hispanics but at whites and I suspect East Asians.
Oh in other news, has it been posted that Obama is ending the automatic citizenship for Cubans who land in the US?
edited 12th Jan '17 5:38:16 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.” ~ CyranI don't think so. I'm seeing it be interpreted as a shot across the bow of the GOP, since Cuban-Americans are the only Latinx group that reliably supports them, and this would open them up to Trump's promised mass deportations?
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Feels to me like the overtures to normalize relationships with the Cuban government would eventually extend to no longer automatically granting asylum to refugees from that nation.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Hmm. So if people's speculation is true, then this is an attempt to drive a wedge between the GOP and part of their base. I respect that from a tactical perspective.
Edit: Or just a result of increasingly normalized relations with Cuba, as you say. Or both.
Also, with regards to the C-SPAN malfunction, last year a French news station was nearly destroyed by Russian hackers.
People are now warning that if what happened today was deliberate, it may have been just a test run.
Or, again, it could just have been a really unintentionally symbolic coincidence..
edited 12th Jan '17 5:35:24 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."@justhelping: the thing about border security in the USA is that it's becoming more or less a non-issue. Net immigration from Mexico — undocumented or otherwise — is negative these days. They're leaving at a faster rate than they are entering.
More undocumented immigrants in the USA these days are people who flew here overseas and overstayed their visas.
All of that just makes Trump's proposed Wall even dumber.
For the record, I don't disagree with Trump on everything either, even though I'm a registered Democrat. I think the TPP would have done more harm than good, and I really hope he sticks to his opposition of it. Despite granting high level positions to known TPP supporters. Including his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
edited 12th Jan '17 5:42:39 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised

Also, to go full tinfoil-hat: is it possible Kissinger is The Man Behind the Man to Putin?
edited 12th Jan '17 2:09:49 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV