>> ^blankfist:

[W]hat's Obama's position on US Imperialism?

He's against it.

>> ^blankfist:
Is he going to finally end the wars?

He's always said he would. He just put out a budget that counts the savings from him doing so. Over 100,000 troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, with the remainder due out by the end of the year, and troops are now starting to withdraw from Afghanistan.

>> ^blankfist:
What about Guantanamo Bay?

He gave an executive order ordering it closed. But Congress blocked him. If you cared enough about this topic to read up on it, or even one of the many times I've explained the problem, you'd know this one can't be fixed by Presidential wand-waving.

>> ^blankfist:
Or more importantly what about the 700+ bases in over 130 countries overseas? Is he closing those down?

If they're not actively fighting anyone, I'm not too worried about it. I'd like to see us reduce our military presence around the world, but I figure reducing the military's budget overall is all that's really required, and Obama and Democrats generally are on board for that.

>> ^blankfist:
What about the billions the federal government gives in corporate welfare? Is he getting rid of that?

That's congress's bag, but yes. That's literally in the budget proposal Cafferty, the Washington Times, and you yourself are decrying, and counting as eeeeevil "tax increases". Obama's proposal includes a $200 billion dollar cut to farm subsidies, and the elimination of gas & oil subsidies, plus the elimination a large number of smaller-ticket subsidies and tax exemptions.

>> ^blankfist:
Until he does those things, I'm getting tired of hearing your side chanting his praises and raising taxes and whatever other nonsense you like to spout.

But that's the thing, he would do all of those things, but Republicans block him using every trick in the book. Plus, ever since 2010 they've held the House, and won't let any of what you claim to want passed even come to the floor.

>> ^blankfist:
You're the party of war now. Enjoy it, but don't expect me to tag along for the ride into the dirt.


But you are tagging along for the ride into the dirt. You're still living in the US, and you're still parroting right-wing talking points all over the place. You carry water for the Republicans, and then pretend like saying "I'm a libertarian who opposes war" absolves you of all responsibility for generally helping the real "party of War" into power.

And rather than face up to the reality of what you're doing, you cook up these absurd justifications that fly entirely in the face of reality, like "liberals want more wars".

Hmm. A lot of people seem to get *very* different reads on Feynman from watching this than I do.

I don't read him as "smug" at all. The smiling? Defense mechanism, I say. He felt regret for his part in developing the bomb, hopeful pleasure in the idea that perhaps dropping the two bombs on Japan represented a net savings in lives both among the Japanese and allied forces (an invasion would have been catastrophic), and the mish-mash of conflicting emotions makes even his incredibly gifted mind go into meltdown.

I personally don't think that any of the Manhattan Project scientists "deserved" to be blamed for deaths caused by the two bombs that were actually dropped "in anger", nor for the near-disasters of the Cold War, etc. etc. I don't think they should even have lost any sleep over their involvement in developing the weapons, but I expect that all of them did in spades.

I think a better (bit still rather unfair) place to start second-guessing things is either with President Truman for giving the executive orders, or the committee that suggested the targets of the bombs (which did include Oppenheimer and other Manhattan Project scientists along with military leaders). I have always wanted to think along the lines of:

What if we had dropped the first bomb in a remote forest, where there would have been hopefully little to no loss of human life but still plenty of evidence as to the destructive power and effective radius of the weapon? We could then have communicated with the Japanese, told them the area to inspect, and said "surrender or next time we drop the same thing somewhere that you're really not going to want us to."

Maybe that would have worked, but it is a dicey way to play the cards we had in our hand. The Japanese might have read it as a sign of weakness, it would have made for another delay before we could develop more bombs and hopefully end the war (although we already had to bluff that we had plenty to use if it came down to it), etc. So basically, now I am just glad that I have never had to and hopefully never will have to make a decision that has anywhere near the magnitude of those made by the people in charge of that whole situation. Second guessing them decades after the fact and with the benefit of hindsight and information that they didn't have access to seems rather crass.

First of all, this clip is rather old. The document was published by WikiLeaks 2011-01-01 21:09 and this speech by Ron Paul was just a few days later. Interestingly, the cable is now marked as released 2011-08-30 01:44.

However, the document itself has been around considerable longer as well. The WP had a piece on it in April '08, titled Ex-Envoy Details Hussein Meeting. And it had been declassified even earlier -- possibly as early as '98, through Executive Order 12958.

Paul refers to the last paragraph of section 30, among others.

At fist I thought this was rather crazy. If you would of asked in the roaring 20's if there come a day when they would be forced to deliver their gold to the government, they would of thought you a mad man. But then, it is 1933 and the depression is in full swing. Executive order 6102 is issued for all to see. Great economic disasters silence critics. Now that the dollar is a "world reserve" currency, the world itself owes to the stability of the dollar, more or less. Times aren't tuff enough for us to be able to politically demand the worlds gold, nor does this president have the "right stuff" to make such demands. And perhaps the US isn't in the right place in peoples minds to make this demand, or get away with it should I say. But tomorrow is not always like today. I can't even make a claim to the unlikeliness of this to occur. For sure, though, I don't Obama could "get away" with it. It would have to be a more populous candidate, and I see Obama more of an elite. I am not for this, mind you, I just like war gaming out possibilities, and this wasn't as crazy as I initially thought.

> ^gwiz665:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/spoco2" title="member since August 21st, 2006" class="profilelink">spoco2 Stop in the name of american squeamishness. This skates the edges, certainly, I expected that the explicit blowjob part would be its doom, but I think this is siftable. If there wasn't an executive order not to sift porn and if people weren't so overly diligent in interpreting that, it would have sifted fine too.


Don't even try to make this be about people being 'prudes'. There are places for that sort of thing, and the sift is NOT one of them, it's not us being prudish about the content, it's about us not wanting it on THIS SITE. One of the things about this place is that it's pretty much work safe, even the NSFW stuff is fine for most workplaces. THAT was nowhere NEAR being safe for any work place, and it is, whether you like it or not, hard core porn. As soon as there is a dick in a mouth or other orifice it is porn.

We all know you like your porn gwiz, and that's fine, hell, I have no issue with it myself, but get your porn fix elsewhere and keep it away from here. Why must you keep trying to bring it here? *sigh* Are you on some crusade to make the sift a pornocopia? Just leave it be.

@spoco2 Stop in the name of american squeamishness. This skates the edges, certainly, I expected that the explicit blowjob part would be its doom, but I think this is siftable. If there wasn't an executive order not to sift porn and if people weren't so overly diligent in interpreting that, it would have sifted fine too.

I don't think these machines were his idea. But they're there now.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
I agree that the buck stops with the President. He could sign an executive order (as far as I know) and make those machines go away. In fact, it would be an excellent way to score some points with his base before his re-election campaign, assuming there is no terrorist attack between now and then. My objection was to your insinuation that these machines were Obama's idea. These machines were put into production a long time ago.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Even if this was true, it has nothing to do with the increased security procedures except for some business is using 'Crony Capitalism' to make money on these backscatter x-ray machines, which I would give you as granted. That's a tiny portion of the argument. The larger argument is still that the TSA is under the control of the Obama Administration, and the buck stops with him.

It's his fault.

Period.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Corporations and 'market forces' are how we got here. I know that by admitting that, you'd have to tear down your entire belief system and start over from scratch, and that's a lot to ask of anyone. I've got no problems attempting to treat the numerous symptoms, but this kind of shit is going to continue as long as big business is in the drivers seat.

I agree that the buck stops with the President. He could sign an executive order (as far as I know) and make those machines go away. In fact, it would be an excellent way to score some points with his base before his re-election campaign, assuming there is no terrorist attack between now and then. My objection was to your insinuation that these machines were Obama's idea. These machines were put into production a long time ago.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
Even if this was true, it has nothing to do with the increased security procedures except for some business is using 'Crony Capitalism' to make money on these backscatter x-ray machines, which I would give you as granted. That's a tiny portion of the argument. The larger argument is still that the TSA is under the control of the Obama Administration, and the buck stops with him.

It's his fault.

Period.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Corporations and 'market forces' are how we got here. I know that by admitting that, you'd have to tear down your entire belief system and start over from scratch, and that's a lot to ask of anyone. I've got no problems attempting to treat the numerous symptoms, but this kind of shit is going to continue as long as big business is in the drivers seat.

Geesus and blankfist,
Yes, citizenship is bestowed upon birth in most countries, and yes, taxes are a pretty basic, common sensical part of a successful civilization. (I'd lurve to here some examples to the contrary if you've gottem) There aren't many countries that don't have taxes. The few exceptions are failed states like Darfur and Somalia.

If you don't like living in a modern civilization, you can either go galt and move to darfur, go off the grid -unibomber style- or work from the inside to change our system to something more anarchical. The last one probably won't happen, because I don't think there has ever been a successful country that didn't have taxes, so just basic common sense is your enemy in this fight.

Beyond all this, I'd think you two would be more happy, because we are about to see government elected on all that free market rhetoric that you both so oft spew.

A huge wave of corporate candidates wrapped in the flag, waving free market ideology have been swept into office, taking over a majority of state legislatures, governors mansions and the house. That combined with a supreme court in the pocket, a filabustable senate and a President who doesn't like to use executive orders very often (which is basically the only thing he can do from here on out), means that free market ideology will have free reign. I expect you will see much privatization, deregulation and tax cuts in areas that benefit big business. Also, Iran is back on the table, because markets just love all the money there is to be found in the weapons of war and the plunder of resources. Tax giveaways to the super-rich are also taking a front seat.

It's ugly, smelly and not too bright, but it's still your baby, it has your DNA. Kiss the baby.

Congressional action would be preferable to an executive order, but the lack of an executive order seems to be primarily for political reasons.

You didn't read my post and you're setting me up as a straw man to argue against.

Obama's language in his executive orders that this is all about talk about respecting "international obligations, domestic laws, and humane treatment". So, I gather that means the only way rendition/abduction/arrest is going to be legit is if there's no reasonable government in place to do an extradition from like say a dude in Somalia plotting to blow up the French Club's trip to Paris. The language also specifies that it would be temporary confinement before due process and never to someplace where they could be tortured. The whole thing is ripe for nasty abuse but as I understand it they're trying to set up a legal framework that does not violate tenants of our society... it is a huge fucking legal mess but I don't see evidence that it's trying to do the stuff you're saying.
>> ^NordlichReiter:

>> ^alizarin:
Obama's renditions are different than Bush's in that :
Bush stuck people in Guantanamo for years with no end in sight or sent them to foreign countries to be tortured. Obama decried that.
Obama wants to maintain the ability to do renditions to places like Bagram only if it's
- for short periods of time (not endlessly imprisoning people without a trial)
- not putting them places where it's reasonable to expect they will be tortured
- not doing anything that's against domestic laws, international obligations, US policy, or humane treatment.
- plus he did effectively close Guantanamo imprisonment
- info
Still way too lacking in checks-and-balances protection from abuse for my tastes but you could make a good argument that he's not being hypocritical.

Utterly disgusting. Secret abductions? How does that not violate some tenant of our society? Due, fucking, process. How about some Equality Before the Law? Treat terrorists for what they are, criminals.

>> ^alizarin:

Regarding assassination:
( ) President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning political assassinations in 1976. However, Congress approved the use of military force against al-Qaida after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People on the target list are considered to be military enemies of the US and therefore not subject to the ban on political assassination.
I agree with John Stewart's main point at the end - Obama is leaving this stuff too open to abuse and needs to close possible loopholes right away.
You can make the case that Al-Qaida is a legit military target and as such it's not really an assassination, just warfare. But where do you formalize what groups are "terrorists" and which individuals get lumped in, and how do you decide if a situation is dire enough to assassinate a militant American citizen vs capture and put him on trial? I don't think Obama is likely to let anything nasty happen but that's way too big of a danger to leave out there.
This story got big when Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said this in congressional testimony:
“Being a US citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives overseas if the individual is working with terrorists and planning to attack fellow Americans.” He added, “We don’t target people for free speech; we target them for taking action that threatens Americans.”
Again, not crazy reasoning...if an American is hiding in Yemen and plotting to blow up a plane maybe we can blow him up first, but way to wide open to avoid abuse. I'm a big Obama fan but I'm pissed that he's running this free and loose with this stuff. Hopefully it's on his to-do list and nothing nasty will become of it before he's done.


Not crazy reasoning? What is this? Israel? That's pretty fucking crazy reasoning. Apologist jingoism is unbecoming. What happened to due process? All because the Criminal suddenly became an enemy of the state?

I point you to a Movie, The Unthinkable. It's just a movie, of course, but it's the thought that it invokes. Just how far are you prepared to go?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unthinkable

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

It's like legal precedence. You allow one case to become a trend setter and many more judgments will follow that case. It's not a slippery slope argument, its a matter of legal precedence. If the US starts assassinating *citizens*, even if they are *terrorists* where does that leave the rest of the citizens? It's a terrible and disgusting thing to think about.

I don't think that there's been a legally declared War since WWII.

Regarding assassination:

(*) President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning political assassinations in 1976. However, Congress approved the use of military force against al-Qaida after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. People on the target list are considered to be military enemies of the US and therefore not subject to the ban on political assassination.

I agree with John Stewart's main point at the end - Obama is leaving this stuff too open to abuse and needs to close possible loopholes right away.

You can make the case that Al-Qaida is a legit military target and as such it's not really an assassination, just warfare. But where do you formalize what groups are "terrorists" and which individuals get lumped in, and how do you decide if a situation is dire enough to assassinate a militant American citizen vs capture and put him on trial? I don't think Obama is likely to let anything nasty happen but that's way too big of a danger to leave out there.

This story got big when Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said this in congressional testimony:

“Being a US citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives overseas if the individual is working with terrorists and planning to attack fellow Americans.” He added, “We don’t target people for free speech; we target them for taking action that threatens Americans.”

Again, not crazy reasoning...if an American is hiding in Yemen and plotting to blow up a plane maybe we can blow him up first, but way to wide open to avoid abuse. I'm a big Obama fan but I'm pissed that he's running this free and loose with this stuff. Hopefully it's on his to-do list and nothing nasty will become of it before he's done.

BP has no right to deny access to a public place. I would have let them arrest me, and then straight to the SCOTUS we go!

It's time they got monetarily raped. If I were president I would issue an executive order to have the CEOs summarily arrested, tarred, feathered and then proceed to acquire their assets; which I would liquidate and give the proceeds directly to the tax payers.

Well sure, everyone knows hockey moms, with their 'you bet'cha!' attitudes, have ten times the 'vast experience' dealing with nuclear arms treaties.

But wait...what? Obama was also the chief editor of the Harvard Law Rewview? He taught classes law classes at Harvard? That might give him experience dealing with international treaties and executive orders?

Maybe the applause sign at these things reads "More facts swept under the rug!!!"
YAYYYYYYYYYY