Starker on 16/4/2019 at 17:04
I don't have a TV set either. It probably helps that I don't live there. I've studied the speeches of Clinton and Reagan in school and it never bothered me that they are written from a certain angle. And having lived in Soviet times, things being presented from a conservative or liberal point of view feels much different than the brainwashing material I was fed growing up. In any case, I can read between the lines and I usually go check the sources anyway.
Renzatic on 17/4/2019 at 01:51
If there's one thing I don't like about Assange, it's not that he releases classified information, embarrassing whole governments for all the world to see, it's that I think he does what he does because he knows that, at some point, he'll get to play a martyr on live TV.
SD on 17/4/2019 at 02:11
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
That explains why he's being arrested on "espionage" charges and the investigation into the rape charges has been closed.
Are you purposefully dense?
Julian Assange has been arrested in Britain for breaching his bail conditions. This is what he has been found guilty of in a British court and that is why he is in custody, pending sentence.
Once Ecuador withdrew his immunity, our police were obligated to act, just as they would with any bail jumper. Any extradition requests will subsequently be dealt with by our independent criminal justice system, not the government.
Tocky on 17/4/2019 at 04:32
Quote Posted by froghawk
Never, frankly. If you engage in imperialism, you reap what you sow. The correct response is to acknowledge that we created this situation and address the ways that we created it rather than trying to always blame it on someone else. Remember 9/11? We armed extremists, used them, then abandoned them, and then they retaliated. Our response to that wasn't to say 'hmm, maybe that was a bad idea and we should change our foreign policy', but instead we got involved in numerous pointless wars which got even more people mad at us and had a very high human cost. Given our history of intervention in Russian politics, I fail to see how this situation is different. Did Bin Laden do a good thing? No. Did Russia do a good thing? No. But unless we acknowledge and address our role in creating these situations, they will continue to happen forever, and the resulting human cost will be high. My point isn't so much that the attacks were 'routine' as that they were utterly mild compared to what we did to inspire them, and that's what we should be focusing on. We need politicians who hold US accountable instead of trying to play world police, because our response has historically pretty much always been to exclusively blame the other.
And Starker, are you watching propaganda spewing talking heads like Wallace and Maddow just to see what people are being told?
You manage to be quite the propagandist yourself. You say we armed extremists. We armed the native inhabitants and those helping them against SOVIET imperialism. We did it for out own selfish reasons perhaps, like getting Russia back for Vietnam, but normally helping a people to remain free is a good thing. It was killing two birds and being able to feel good about it. What we did not fully understand was that the Mujahideen had no gratitude and was operating on the principle of anyone not of their religion being subhuman and worthy of none of the usual tit for tat acts of decency extended to those who were of their religion. We learned that the hard way. We learn everything the hard way. Whether in Afghanistan or Iraq we learned you can't just pick the good side and expect good results when even the good side hates you and there are always mullahs and factions ready to kill you for just being there (or not being there as with 911) even if you did things perfectly without mistake which we absolutely did not. LOT'S of mistakes like those gleefully exposed by an obviously biased Assange. He may not be a Russian agent but he is absolutely lenient when it comes to them. Not so the US. He is absolutely biased against the US.
You say we used extremists and abandoned them. Were we supposed to nation build? Do you not recall the calls to leave Iraq soon after it's liberation? We were blamed for staying then. There is no good choice where the middle east is concerned. Hussein needed deposing and we were at fault in our support of him up to his gassing the Kurds. We owed the people of Iraq for our earlier support of him. There just are no good choices where that region is concerned. None. Support? WRONG. No support? WRONG. Perhaps you think we should just stay out and let the region devolve. Let the Taliban have it. Let the northern alliance of tribes be crushed by the repressive assholes. That's what we were doing before 911. Even THAT didn't work out did it? Damned if you do and damned if you don't. There is no right choice. I tend to think we should stay out too. MAYBE our staying out won't cause another 911 as before. BUT maybe it will. Just throw money at it you say? Yeah. Right.
I don't know what the answer is. We've tried a bit of everything. You don't know either. Police and be called imperialists? Leave and be accused of abandonment? Pick one. Some are ready to blame either way. Not that it would matter if just SOME good would come out of SOMETHING we do or don't do. Maybe we should just piss on those who make mistakes trying to do something like Assange does. Lot's think he is a hero.
catbarf on 17/4/2019 at 13:32
Quote Posted by froghawk
The correct response is to acknowledge that we created this situation and address the ways that we created it rather than trying to always blame it on someone else.
So what does that
actually mean, in practical terms?
If it were just a case of Russia retaliating against the US for prior meddling, then I could understand a policy of acknowledging the election interference (without this 'everyone does it' or 'it wasn't that bad' or 'well we do it too' deflection), taking steps to prevent it from happening again, and doing nothing further. But it's not just us. Russia is involved in annexing their neighbors, seizing international waters, and undermining the democracies of all nations in their sphere of influence. They're not uniquely our enemy, they're the enemy of any nation opposed to their national interests.
If we consider everything Russia does now to be our fault, then that means the annexation of Crimea, invasion of Georgia, destabilization of Ukraine, and seizure of the Azov Sea are all our fault and consequently our responsibility to deal with. Not because we're playing world police, but because according to this apologism every act of aggression they carry out is our fault, making it our moral obligation to address.
Either they're a sovereign nation committing acts of aggression and we ought to respond, or they're a direct product of our actions and we have a responsibility to respond. Simply washing our hands of the consequences of our international meddling hasn't worked out great in the past.
froghawk on 17/4/2019 at 14:22
Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's a VERY major leap to go from 'this particular action by this country was a direct result of our involvement' to 'all actions by this country are a result of our involvement', and I NEVER implied the latter. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
And Tocky, are you kidding me? The west has been heavily involved in the middle east since at least the treaty of Versailles, when the region was arbitrarily divided into countries without any regard for cultural boundaries and plunged into chaos. There hasn't really been a time since when the west hasn't been involved in the region, and you're entirely ignoring that history by claiming that 'we tried not being involved' and saying that we weren't involved prior to Hussein, which is ridiculous. You call me a propagandist then claim the Taliban's motivation was purely religious. It wasn't. It was a response to decades of western imperialist action.
The answer is pretty simple in both of these cases, guys. Imperialism caused literally all of these problems, from our own imperialism to Europe's to Russia's. So we either keep doing the thing that created the problems in the first place (sometimes under the guise of 'fixing' the problems we started, but that's never really the reason and it literally never works), or we stop trying to control the world for our own benefit.
icemann on 17/4/2019 at 17:19
And don't forget the crusades of the middle ages. The first big one.
Vae on 17/4/2019 at 18:13
[video=youtube;I_To-cV94Bo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo[/video]
froghawk on 17/4/2019 at 18:42
Is there a reason you're posting a video from a blatant white supremacist youtube channel which also features videos and playlists like 'most serial killers are black men', 'africans aren't pure homo sapiens', 'inventiveness and creativity of white people/europeans', 'africans started slavery', and 'muslim gang rapes across europe'? Do you honestly consider that a reliable source, or are you trying to make a weird joke?
