Author Topic: The sad state of the (UN) United States  (Read 24150 times)

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Offline Super Colin Blow

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #15 on: June 18, 2021, 04:49:49 am »
MH: I think it's more than a slight nod.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #16 on: June 18, 2021, 06:36:15 am »
MH: I think it's more than a slight nod.

Maybe, but do you think we're going to get reparations, restored affirmative action, or any real left programs from this?

Offline Super Colin Blow

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #17 on: August 22, 2021, 10:36:34 pm »
Maybe, but do you think we're going to get reparations, restored affirmative action, or any real left programs from this?

Reparations? Only for the descendants of slaves, or are we going to give them to everyone the government has screwed over since 1776?

We still have affirmative action.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #18 on: August 23, 2021, 05:37:39 am »
I think that the hard right in the US is imitating the left, which is a bad sign.

Socialism is creeping forward.  There would never have been a candidate like Bernie Sanders a generation or more ago.

Offline Super Colin Blow

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2021, 07:00:06 am »
I think that the hard right in the US is imitating the left, which is a bad sign.

Socialism is creeping forward.  There would never have been a candidate like Bernie Sanders a generation or more ago.

Several generations ago someone like him would certainly be in Congress. But not as a member: he'd be answering awkward questions to the House Committee on Unamerican Activities about his socialism. (Not saying I want to go back to that though)
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #20 on: August 23, 2021, 07:51:42 am »
And as has been pointed out - he's a centrist when you scale him against European parties.

Offline Super Colin Blow

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #21 on: August 25, 2021, 01:26:01 am »
And as has been pointed out - he's a centrist when you scale him against European parties.

I know what you mean by that, but it's also apples and oranges. People tend to see the rest of the world through the lens of their own culture/country/whatever, and sometimes that lens has spots on it.
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #22 on: August 25, 2021, 05:59:07 am »
Your comment here applies to the USA since the rest of the Western world is more similar to each other than to them.

Offline Super Colin Blow

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #23 on: August 25, 2021, 03:19:00 pm »
Your comment here applies to the USA since the rest of the Western world is more similar to each other than to them.

In what way?
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Offline eyeball

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #24 on: August 25, 2021, 03:38:17 pm »
In what way?
The most obvious difference is that the US is effectively the West's only real super-rogue power.  Britain and France are just for show.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #25 on: August 25, 2021, 05:34:35 pm »
In what way?

Universal healthcare, state media, funded public education, religious influence is limited, Strong social safety nets...

Like that
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Offline eyeball

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #26 on: August 26, 2021, 08:30:33 pm »
It's painful watching America's conservative populist pundits struggle to wrap their stupid heads around the root causes behind the Taliban's humiliation of the US.

What's really amazing is how many of their sentiments would have  brought nothing but condemnation if not death threats if they'd been voiced during the build up of rationalizations used to justify America's invasion of Afghanistan not to mention Iraq.

The decision to invade Iraq is probably the main reason Afghanistan became such a mess.  America cut and ran from it's responsibility in Afghanistan in 2003 not last week.


Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #27 on: August 26, 2021, 08:40:47 pm »
They're taking about going back? 

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #28 on: August 26, 2021, 09:07:52 pm »

The decision to invade Iraq is probably the main reason Afghanistan became such a mess.  America cut and ran from it's responsibility in Afghanistan in 2003 not last week.

I think this was a project doomed to fail no matter what.   Just like Vietnam you'd have to essentially kill all of the insurgents in order to stop them from fighting.

Afghanistan is a country filled with a lot of violent Muslim extremists and there's not much to be done about that save killing them all, which is virtually impossible.
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Offline eyeball

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Re: The sad state of the (UN) United States
« Reply #29 on: August 26, 2021, 10:05:12 pm »
I think this was a project doomed to fail no matter what.

Saying that 20 years ago would elicit death threats. Of course everyone's saying it now.

It's hard to feel much pity for Biden and the Democrats who seem to be wearing the failure and blame for America's humiliation. They stood shoulder to shoulder for wading into this fiasco from day 1 too.