US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[Madrun Badrun]

https://i.imgur.com/b3etAkI.gifv

WOW

[kingv]

He was shilling about how innocent he was like a week ago.

Never mind that he was pretty happy to defend and deflect his conversations with Trump Jr. whether or not it was illegal, it was inappropriate for an organization that theoretically is about transparency.

Would love to hear what reality winner thinks about him.

[etiolate]

Just wait til you find out how many people in Washington do deals with rich people in Russia!

The commies have been running the country the whole time!

[Boredfrom]

Just wait til you find out how many people in Washington do deals with rich people in Russia!

The commies have been running the country the whole time!

Like Donald Trump.

[Phoenix Dark]

The other forum and some folks on twitter are wringing hands over Manning running...and I don't get it. She's not a good public speaker and doesn't have an identifiable local base of support in Maryland. What demographic does she appeal to?

I'd imagine she'll try to poison the well a bit - ie losing and declaring the democrat winner unfit or not worth supporting. Not that it's going to matter in fucking Maryland.

[kingv]

I’d be waaay more concerned with Oprah, tbh. Whose only discernible positions from the past are no estate tax, and “supporting Obama and Hillary”.

She actually is a good public speaker, and has a base of people that like her, but also has no business being the President.

Chelsea is about to find out exactly how far the goodwill from leaking will take her. I predict it is not far. While perhaps her leaking was semi-admirable, in its way, my opinion is it had as much to do with her struggling with her identity as a person as it did have to do with anything honorable.

[benjipwns]

I used to like glenn greenwald, but over the years realized a few things in the world of Glenn:
- America is always the aggressor, and is always wrong. Always
- trump sucks but the democrats suck just as bad
- the media is always wrong, except the intercept, which is always great
- Everybody that has ever been a part of his two big stories is above reproach at all times, then, now, and forever into the future. Exhibit A:

Greenwald is a piece of shit.

except for the second and third ones because the intercept didn't exist at the time, so it'd be the guardian, and you have to swap in obama and the republicans these are literally what i used to read from the conservative regulars (and the two non-American Objectivists) on a libertarian forum while that black guy was in office

lots of SHOULDN'T TRUST HIM (AND BY PROXY RUSSIAN AGENT SNOWDEN) BECAUSE HE JUST DID THAT BECAUSE HE HATES AMERICA, NO MATTER WHAT AMERICA IS EVIL IN HIS MIND

ideally there would be something about sockpuppets too but nobody young enough remembers that probably

[benjipwns]

post made for Mandark: comment about Krugman's columns being written by his wife

[benjipwns]

Friedman is fine to me. I don't really seek him out, but I don't recoil when I come across his stuff. A lot I don't agree with the guy on, a lot of stuff I do, but agreements not really my goal when reading opinion columnists TBH, I just try to make sure they have intellectual integrity.

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Time%2Bfor%2BLeadership%2Be302d4
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/The+Fear+Factor+in+India+0dcde7
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Go%2BBig%252C%2BMr.%2BObama%2B540aab

 

[Mandark]

Paul Krugman, unlike Glenn Greenwald, opposed the Iraq War.

[benjipwns]

I wonder if my posts of the time are buried enough that I can start telling people I opposed the Iraq War since you could take some of my younger benji arguments against claims/premises I thought were unsupported (i.e. it just for oil or what have you) and certainly frame them as not outright opposition.

At least I didn't publish that I was wishy-washy about it in the introduction of a book.

Or run a Presidential campaign by claiming the guy I wanted to beat outsmarted me and tricked me into supporting something that I and I alone at the time thought said something different and required things totally not listed. But that I still supported anyway and wanted to just do better. Maybe. Which answer do you want again?

[curly]

Speaking of leftist columnists, I'm a fan of Elizabeth Breunig.

Paul Krugman, unlike Glenn Greenwald, opposed the Iraq War.

That's a pretty cheap jab considering this was before he became interested in politics

[curly]

I'm talking about greenwald, not krugman (unless greenwald has a history I'm unaware of)

[team filler]

shut the fuck up about krugman already

[Mandark]

wah wah wah

no

[benjipwns]

That's a pretty cheap jab considering this was before he became interested in politics

I'm not above this because I love those ancient videos where David Brooks when a student and thus still calling himself a social democrat is making the same stupid arguments he's made since he became a conservative just mildly different to a completely baffled Milton Friedman who basically asks him why he's so fucking stupid. (Something to be fair, he does to like six of the eight students in the video, and like extra hard to the conservatives who thought he would be on their side regarding drugs, which is totally a series I'd watch if I could think of someone today to do it.)

SPENDTHRIFT JABS AT FAMOUS PEOPLE

spoiler (click to show/hide)

weirdest thing is that david brooks alone of all the people in that video has barely aged visibly, leading me to suspect something

[close]

[Mandark]

If I were committed to the gag, I'd go back to my "Greenwald supported the Iraq War" post and give it multiple bolded UPDATES showing how that post is vindicated.

[benjipwns]

yet i get nothing for the krugman wife thing

do i need to make remarks about how dumb he looks in pictures with his cat?!?

maybe his cat should write his blog!

[Mandark]

Yeah, I remember when you floated that Robin Wells as Jesse Malkin/Bill Ayers idea seriously, but to your credit you were pretty clearly embarrassed when I asked for a source and you actually thought about it for a second.

[benjipwns]

It might not have been wholly serious because I remember once also supporting the inverse theory, that Krugman had gone insane and anything coherent was her as she's the co-writer on their textbooks. Plus I think she had her own blog for a while too.

I almost want to say that that strongly supported and valid until disproven theory may have been tracked back to Krugman mentioning she had written the bulk of one of their newer textbooks as she was stronger in the subject at a conference or something as just an aside proud of his partner type comment. And that became the whole "he's a good economist, his wife writes his garbage" somehow.

[Mandark]

Hey, I was willing to let this stay forgotten, like your Bjorn Lomborg fandom.

[benjipwns]

Now that is a extra bit of misrepresentation, I only endorsed his concepts as an alternative and a starting point. You may be combining that with someone else or I may have been too tryhard in my early Bore days, I would never, ever, endorse anything from someone who only has a degrees in Political Science. Let alone be a fan!

At least it's impossible for you to copy the most hurtful thing ever said about me on here/GAF, that I was a Stefan Molyneux fan, due to my well repeated distrust/disgust of all things Canadian.

[Mandark]

What literally happened: you cited Lomborg as someone you generally agree with, I was all "have you actually read his shit?" and you were all "oh well never mind he sucks."


edit: Shit, while we're on climate change, "cap and trade would force the US into a ground invasion in Africa" was a much hotter take of yours.

[benjipwns]

Well, I mean, I do generally agree with his argument about resource allocation on environmental issues, I'd prefer to maximize resources on expanding something like clean water access and renewability before something less concrete like climate change. I understand the counterargument though I'm not entirely convinced there isn't significant misallocation but also that I don't know. I do know that since his original book he's started to go into more and more hardline positions on certain topics that I haven't followed up, both back then and especially now, I did recently see him even complaining about desalinization projects because Nothern Yurop does it differently and better supposedly.

I don't think cap and trade, but a carbon tax, and I think arguably it's something I still haven't seen seriously discussed and analyzed regarding what are intended to be internationally enforced agreements that at least two powers if not more developing nations have a major disinterest in enforcing on themselves. In theory, like any UN resolution they would have be enforced at some point and that has the potential to lead to President Trump invading shithole countries endlessly on the premise that they're not hostilities and thus Congress can shut up about it.

edit: I guess it's more of one of those slippery slopes that only nutbags like me would ever be concerned about, I mean we don't even enforce things on ourselves and tell others to come and make us.

[kingv]

I used to like glenn greenwald, but over the years realized a few things in the world of Glenn:
- America is always the aggressor, and is always wrong. Always
- trump sucks but the democrats suck just as bad
- the media is always wrong, except the intercept, which is always great
- Everybody that has ever been a part of his two big stories is above reproach at all times, then, now, and forever into the future. Exhibit A:

Greenwald is a piece of shit.

except for the second and third ones because the intercept didn't exist at the time, so it'd be the guardian, and you have to swap in obama and the republicans these are literally what i used to read from the conservative regulars (and the two non-American Objectivists) on a libertarian forum while that black guy was in office

lots of SHOULDN'T TRUST HIM (AND BY PROXY RUSSIAN AGENT SNOWDEN) BECAUSE HE JUST DID THAT BECAUSE HE HATES AMERICA, NO MATTER WHAT AMERICA IS EVIL IN HIS MIND

ideally there would be something about sockpuppets too but nobody young enough remembers that probably

I have no idea what the time limits you are talking about coming from. These are just general revelations of Glenn Greenwald, “in general”.

It’s kind of funny that you come to his aid, because in my view you are basically a less screechy Glenn (in this topic). Where everybody but you is essentially wrong. And if they are an expert, they are double plus wrong and dumb on top of it, unless, of course, they are a disgraced, dead, or otherwise someone that most of the country mocks.

[Mandark]

Well, I mean, I do generally agree with his argument about resource allocation on environmental issues

If only we could allocate more resources generally towards those issues. Too bad we're limited to this fixed amount of EnviroBux^TM.


edit: and buddy, if you're worried about US energy policy dragging it into military conflicts, you should sit down cause I've got some really bad news.

[Nola]

Friedman is fine to me. I don't really seek him out, but I don't recoil when I come across his stuff. A lot I don't agree with the guy on, a lot of stuff I do, but agreements not really my goal when reading opinion columnists TBH, I just try to make sure they have intellectual integrity.

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Time%2Bfor%2BLeadership%2Be302d4
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/The+Fear+Factor+in+India+0dcde7
http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Go%2BBig%252C%2BMr.%2BObama%2B540aab

 

He’s a guy that should stick to his wheelhouse TBH. When he starts trying to bring spiritualism, military policy, foreign policy(ironic given his academic background) or domestic political punditry into his pieces, he gets himself into trouble.

His reputation would of stayed a lot stronger if he just stuck to broad arguments about trade policy and his comfort zones within economics.

I honestly don’t even look at that aspect of his work because it’s hot take filler that is fairly empty and disposable. When he has something to say about IDK, the legacy issues present in our current energy policies with respect to addressing Climate Change pragmatically through economic incentives and targetted investments, or what he concludes from research are the specific benefits of TPP for America with regards to human rights with China and global trade, yeah, I’ll give him a read. Move outside of that economic wheelhouse and he can more often than not fuck off.

[Mandark]

I don't know that Friedman even has a wheelhouse at this point. He used to be a reporter and I remember From Beirut To Jerusalem not being bad, but in the aughts even his "good" columns were either fairly vague, sweeping statements about globalism, or policy/industry-specific stuff where it came across as him just believing whoever it is who had briefed him on the subject and doing PR for them as a result.

In fairness I haven't read a column of his in years and years, but I'm super skeptical he's gotten that much better and couldn't be replaced in anyone's reading diet.

[benjipwns]

I know you're new here, so I apologize for repeating this, I generally do not respond to things I agree with unless I can add something.

I am skeptical of "experts" especially ones that only appear in the media in partisan fashions which is a fair cop.

However, I don't defend Glenn anymore than anyone else where I disagree with the argument being made against him, some people just have a hardon about his stuff so he gets brought up with similar statements, and I was more noting the amusing factor that the same arguments about him have gone on for twelve years now. Only that I used to only see it from conservatives, and objectivists, until Hillary lost.

I wouldn't agree that the four things you note are aligned with me.
-I certainly don't think America is always wrong, but I don't have a problem with people pointing out how often its government has been.
-Well, here I agree, but I also think that Republicans suck just as bad. Which doesn't need as much repeating, something I think Glenn may feel, as other people are regularly pointing that out. For the record, the worst is the LP. At least the Greens are slowly turning themselves into a Jill Stein cult. I fully support cults.
-The media is not always wrong, but it's generally pretty horrible, and that includes The Intercept and reason and everyone else. Except for the comments, where the truth gets out.
-I think Snowden is his only big story; he wasn't involved in Manning nor has been involved with Wikileaks other than reporting on their releases. Snowden certainly seems to be a pretty stand up kind of guy from what I know, other than that whole Ron Paul thing.

If anything I think Glenn undercovered the theoretically most important story of the last decade after he became Snowden's conduit and shifted to covering mostly that and the NSA confirmation:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/24/obama-terrorism-kill-list
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/obama-kill-list-doj-memo

Hunting for those two in his Guardian archives reminded me that he's been going after the media for its choices in coverage for ages, he wrote three columns on how CNN failed to hold Paul Ryan accountable (or it appeared three times) and a bundle about how they're falling for the same bullshit regarding "national security" that they happily lapped up from the Bush Administration almost always using Judith Miller's pictures as the image lol

The easily found record ends shortly before the first article so I don't know if he has articles regarding Libya. Arguably that seems like a story prewritten for Glenn. Media complicity in repeating fabrications from dubious sources that all pointed towards one conclusion, shopping legal opinions to multiple departments until one came back with the right answer, drones, BENGHAZI.

[benjipwns]

edit: and buddy, if you're worried about US energy policy dragging it into military conflicts, you should sit down cause I've got some really bad news.

but like exactly!

[Mandark]

Greenwald's always been pretty quick to impugn other people's motives, can't really feel sorry for him. Especially when this "THE NEW MCCARTHYISM" stuff is only marginally less goofy than calling everyone a Russian cutout.

[benjipwns]

That is something I totally agree with, I don't think he's even capable of doing it the fun way where you don't know if he's serious or joking with exaggeration. In fact, I'm not sure he actually has a sense of humor now that I think about it.

[benjipwns]

One of Mandark's bookmarks, Matt Taibbi is the same way in his columns, but in his books (that aren't collecting and extending his columns) he's much better at not only discussing subjects, and doing actual original reporting, but also making the insults and barely simmering contempt straddle that line better sorta like on Penn and Teller: Bullshit where you know the reason they give for calling people assholes is also because they think they're assholes.

[Mandark]

My lasting impression of Greenwald is from the ACA debates. Some polisci professor had blogged about how the presidency is considered a "weak" office that relies on indirect power blah blah blah, and Greenwald essentially said the guy was making up shit cause we all know the presidency is powerful, was obviously a tool of the establishment, etc. and did his typical thing of digging in with UPDATES.

Like, even if you disagreed in general or in that specific case about the extent of Obama's leverage, the idea that a bunch of academic geeks had falsified years of research so they could one day make excuses for a disappointing Democratic president? That's a hell of a long con.

[benjipwns]

Joke's on you, Carter and Clinton's FAILED AND WEAK Presidencies were part of that whole plan too.

[Mandark]

Also Greenwald had that "What's worse, Trump's agenda, or letting the DEEP STATE impede a duly elected president!?" tweet or whatever recently. Not a great look.

[Nola]

I don't know that Friedman even has a wheelhouse at this point. He used to be a reporter and I remember From Beirut To Jerusalem not being bad, but in the aughts even his "good" columns were either fairly vague, sweeping statements about globalism, or policy/industry-specific stuff where it came across as him just believing whoever it is who had briefed him on the subject and doing PR for them as a result.

In fairness I haven't read a column of his in years and years, but I'm super skeptical he's gotten that much better and couldn't be replaced in anyone's reading diet.

I mean yeah, he's always been a shitty foreign policy guru and a journalist following economics, not an economist practicing journalism, and you have to take that into account reading him. Like an Ezra Klein type(but I'd easily take an Ezra column over him TBH).

But I thought he made some good points recently with his thoughts on accelrationsim, the value of the TPP for human rights and American competitiveness, and his prior book on how to transition our energy economy to address climate change. None of it is anything you couldn't find by looking through primary sources, but I think he has the capacity to articulate those arguments pretty well, adding his own quirks to them. IMO that is where he has shown value, outside of that? Yeah I haven't found much.

But honestly, I feel like I am sort of defending someone that if I was pressed, isn't really even on my radar much unless he comes across as a podcast guest, or he has an economic column/book I find linked somewhere. I just think the reductionist narratives about the guy earlier in the thread were a bit much.

[Mandark]

Even if he's a replacement level public intellectual, he was so consistently awful during the Bush years that we'd be better off without him. The lack of consequences for the people who pushed for that war is its own disaster.

[benjipwns]

I would think Trump's agenda and a good chunk of the deep state's would line up pretty well. Even positive conservative stories about Trump talk about how much he respects and defers to the military and similar. (Apparently because of his time at military school. Like lol)

He's been having a public spat with the FBI and DNI but even there they seem to be working things out on the bulk of issues that don't involve him personally. And he doesn't seem to be the type to want to reign in their abuses. Or even pretend to.

I never figured him and State would be in much agreement, even if we toss out the Russia stuff, he has too many pre-existing long-term views about nations and foreign policy. That was the disconnect that Powell faced in the W. Bush administration, that they essentially ignored State. Which Powell did not expect as Bush/Reagan didn't when he was part of those admins, it was Clinton who had.

[benjipwns]

Even if he's a replacement level public intellectual

between this and curly's Giannis post, we are breaking new political science ground this week and i feel like a total failure to not have helped

[Nola]

Even if he's a replacement level public intellectual, he was so consistently awful during the Bush years that we'd be better off without him. The lack of consequences for the people who pushed for that war is its own disaster.

Thats fair. I certainly think there are any number of people that could do what he does better, and wouldn't really lose much sleep if he was pushed out into the void of obscurity. But sort of like Hitchens, I thought his foreign policy views were often clearly objectively flawed and borderline reprehensible, but I still found many of his critiques of religion and religious based hierarchies incredibly valuable, and would gladly consume them when I stumbled across them...Not that I think Friedman is on that level, just the first example I thought of to explain my dichotomy.

[Mandark]

Of course Trump doesn't have any problem with the security state, other than the fact that it might find dirt on him. You'd have to expend so much mental energy to pretend otherwise.

[Mandark]

NO

HITCHENS WAS BAD

[kingv]

I didn’t mean to say you are exactly like Greenwald. You might not even like Brazilian cock.

I actually agree with him about half the time, but he has a huge blind spot for Assange Andy Wikileaks, and Snowden (who IMO is far more sympathetic of a person, anyway), I don’t know that he was “involved” with the
Release of the manning stuff, but he was absolutely interviewing Assange regularly during his Salon days:

https://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/assange_asks_ecuador_for_asylum/
That piece is basically a conspiracy theory absolving Assange of rape (which frankly the charges seemed sort of dumb) because of some sort of conspiracy about a US plan to extradite him and charge him with... what exactly? Assange has never been charged, there are no Interpol orders out for his extradition, and now he’s about to leave the embassy, Glenn seems convinced that we should be outraged about this nonexistent overreach... though he is half justified by the grounding of that diplomats plane.

Obama really fucked up on the whistleblower stuff. IMO, he enabled Trump in a lot of ways.

An entire piece dedicated only to saying that Assange and manning are unfairly smear d:
https://www.salon.com/2012/05/31/a_reminder_about_wikileaks/

That sentiment looks incredibly stupid now.

A tv review on how great Assange’s Russia Today TV show is:
https://www.salon.com/2012/05/22/re_visiting_assanges_show/

A defense of manning (that’s not completely unfair, really)
https://www.salon.com/2011/12/24/the_intellectual_cowardice_of_bradley_mannings_critics/

Side note, here is a defense of Kucinich, who is now running as a trumpist
https://www.salon.com/2012/03/10/dennis_kucinich_and_wackiness/

I gave up digging earlier than 2012, other than this choice defense of Wikileaks:
https://www.salon.com/2010/03/27/wikileaks/

It includes this choice quote

This is how Assange put it to me this morning in explaining why he believes his organization's activities are so vital and why he's willing to make himself a target in order to do it:

I remember this playing out a lot in 2010, when I really liked Greenwald. He was always interviewing Assange, especially about Manning.

And to this day, he still defends RT, Assange, Manning, and Snowden regardless of what they do. Now they are deserving of various levels of defense. Snowden a decent amount, Manning some, and RT and Assange, honestly, Glenn should go back and be like “Assange is not who I thought he was, not is Wikileaks, and I’m sorry I fell for a Russia Propaganda news network”

[Mandark]

Can't believe we've got people defending Bjorn Lomborg and Chris Hitchens in this thread.

This used to be a nice neighborhood.

[Nola]

NO

HITCHENS WAS BAD

Like I sort of inferred, the moment he stepped out of his own wheelhouse of religious critique, most of his contributions, especially about Middle-Eastern foreign policy, were pretty much half-cocked garbage IMO. Frankly though, that seems to be a running theme with the 00's atheist intellectuals of Hitchens, Harris, and Dawkins. Come for the Spaghetti Monster and amputees, but make sure to leave before they start talking about how Israel has the moral clearance to retaliate bomb those radicalized hodjis - and their children if necessary - to whatever capacity they see fit.

[benjipwns]

Kucinich doesn't seem to have changed his positions any, let alone changed them to line up with Trump's, he just seems to be pushing the angle where his views meet his current media employers, that the deep state is against this President rather than supporting him. Everything else seems about the same. I see some of the Democratic complaints are he has met with Bashir Assad. But I can find him meeting with Assad all the way back to when he was a Congressman too. That was one of the things he got criticized for was meeting with America's enemies. Presumably to talk about his Department of Peace.

RT America to me isn't inherently a big deal because aside from not actually being a channel I think people watched, it was also the only media outlet for a lot of these more radical/extreme voices to get any kind of coverage, and when anchors started resigning in disgust at editorial interference a number of Americans also stopped doing appearances. (I can't speak to Glenn, I only know of libertarians who started suggesting things changed around the same time and the type of libertarian appearing on the network shifted towards the LewRockwell wing. The Johnson campaign also wasn't as positive to it in 2016 as it was in 2012.) Although it's also propping up some once traditional TV Democrats like Ed Schultz and quite literally propping up Larry King. I'd even argue that it appears that RT America's initial period was much like al Jazeera's and that it was after it was established some that the parent organization started to pull the reigns a bit tighter on the operation. I certainly am open to the alternative viewpoint, especially that it's changed and become nothing but propaganda, I just haven't ever really watched it other than internet clips and the debates it hosted.

Also I'm glad it informed me that Jesse Ventura has created a younger ponytailed clone of himself like Lex Luthor did in the Superman comics.

Though currently, like Kucinich, and the fact that Tucker brings Glenn on to chat harmoniously, they have a much bigger audience waiting to hear their views line up temporarily on Fox. But I'd also argue that Fox, MSNBC and CNN have changed as has RT from 2012, The Daily Show has! Even Last Week Tonight has changed. The Young Turks has. (Maoist Rebel News CONSISTENT.)

That's the long version of me saying that I don't know about a blanket condemnation for RT America six years ago is the way to go, nor even now inherently especially for things like how they cover people who don't get on elsewhere, but then I mean I'm already skeptical of media and media sources anyway, I just tend to prefer to pick and choose specific shows/coverage to criticize. Like how FOX has airtight unbiased reporting from 8-11PM currently, now that they finally got rid of O'Reilly and Scientologist Greta.

I'm sure there's a big ol packet of RT America propaganda I can watch, but I generally assumed that except for here and there or where coverage aligned. RT I don't think was ever considering anything but. I know Alex Jones used to make fun of it when it was just the Russian version. I do think you can make distinctions about and find value in RT America's positioning back when it seemed a bit less free from parental oversight and even today where it's more obviously being held to the parents line.

[benjipwns]

My favorite Hitchens content has become where it's got them both:

[benjipwns]

And just because, here's those Friedman vs. David Brooks and seven other students videos...

Going off my memory as I haven't watched these in a couple years but first part I think is where he most talks to Brooks as illustrated by the freeze frame, second part is where the two conservatives are shocked and one of them gets upset over Milton's refusal to murder drug users, and the third part has more Brooks in it but is mostly amusing because for some reason an example of potatoes is used once and then used in all the examples and hypotheticals and I started imagining that they were all Elbonians from Dilbert* debating policy:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

*yes, i know that their obsession and economy is mud based, what do you think i am some kind of luddite alt-right nut who just discovered Scott Adams?

[benjipwns]

oh shit i can't forget this totally benji Hitchens favorite that recently got put up for free, after the 1984 election he appears on Firing Line with R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., then after they both get bored with Tyrell not understanding questions he's asked, he has a separate conversation with WFB full of jokes and references that they only understand while Tyrell gets increasingly upset and keeps demanding they talk about how much Democrats are godless heathens who want to surrender to communists and blacks and that liberalism is dead never to return because it's not an actual philosophy but a mental disorder:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[benjipwns]

 :marxumad :krotopkinumad

[Mandark]

Best thing I ever heard/read about Buckley was that he didn't want anyone smarter than him writing for the National Review, which was a problem since he was such a mediocre intellect.

[VomKriege]

Greenwald should be chained to a rock where an eagle tears out his liver every night for a thousand years.

And no, not for bringing any kind of spark to mankind, benji.

Just for leaking info that a powerful cabal of superhumans didn't want you to know then ?

[Mandark]

I basically hold Christopher Hitchens almost - but not quite - on the same level George Orwell.

Well the last decade of his life was a desperate bid to become his era's Orwell, with Iraq as his Spanish Civil War.

Only problem was how dumb and shitty he was.

[benjipwns]

shows how much you guys know, there's no "the" it's just National Review

CHECKMATE, LIEBERALS, PREPARE TO GET PARSED

[benjipwns]

i want to say that i was going to make that point about Hitchens religious career focus being his later career and as he writes in one books resulted from his cancer and thinking about death; his earlier career was all normal politics including modern left politics for a bit and foreign policy, but i forgot, so give me all the credit first please

also, his "shift" on Iraq/Afghanistan was one of the few that actually explained their shift in terms that seemed consistent, and it started earlier with the Balkins conflicts, he also admitted an uncomfortably with the assumptions and hop-ons his position brought

also speaking of Peter, as they note in the above 2008 debate, it was the social conservative, christian, denial of Palestine/dyslexia/ADHD/drug addiction/etc. even existing Peter who opposed Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, etc. intervention and Christopher supported them all

Hitch was fun, Buckley was fun, don't care if dumb or with huge blindspots...of course now we have Ben Shapiro and SECULAR TALK

[Mandark]

"or with huge blind spots"

dog buckley was a huge racist who blamed my lai on promiscuous youth culture

[Mandark]

Can you point to a televised segment with him or an article he wrote where he was being dumb?

yes literally all of them

[benjipwns]

"or with huge blind spots"

dog buckley was a huge racist who blamed my lai on promiscuous youth culture

my lai was certainly a form of promiscuous youth culture

[Mandark]

people who wanted action in Iraq for good reasons and were sad with the way it turned out.

Yeah he was so sad that circa 2006 he was rabidly defending the war as a good idea while agitating for an invasion of Iran. This wasn't one bad judgment, this was his schtick for a decade.