Progressives (Liberals)

Let me work up a study curriculum for you, george.

That the democratic party of today is liberal is bull shyt. It is at best centrist if not slightly consertive. I vote for it because the republicans have become uber ultra conservative. I get sick when I hear democrats or anyone else call the Clinton's or any of the presidents elected since Kennedy lliberal. They were at best centerests.

Well, it's liberal compared to the space where many of the Republicans have landed. Today's Dems are in quite a few ways, similar to the Goldwater Republicans from '64.

And the Republicans are like the yellow dog Dems from the south of the post Civil War era to the 1940s.

The democrats literally want felons, illegal immigrants, and children to be able to vote. And they want whack job parents to be able to give children hormones to make them sterile.

Thank you for posting the article:

(Tulsi Gabbard and the Return of the Anti-Anti-Trump Left)

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/tulsi-gabbard-impeachment-trump-russia-2020-election.html



I plan on reposting this article on another thread.

Systematic centrism is not a reasonable formula for a journalist, who is not a politician trying to get some legislation approved by garnering votes. There ought to be an important difference between politicians and journalists, between actors and observers, and a degree of independence between the two is necessary.

Power sharing is a rather weak form of governance, the type that primitive societies tend to favour, e.g. Afghan politics are all about it.

Tulsi Gabbard
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Dec 22
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2,400 Americans & countless Afghans have been killed in Afghanistan War that our leaders have known for 18 yrs is unwinnable. They’ve lied about progress in that war to get the $4bn/month it costs. My new bill calls for congressional investigation. It's time for accountability.

Matt Taibbi
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17h17 hours ago
MoreMatt Taibbi Retweeted Krystal Ball
Remember when Chait’s vision for the Democratic ticket was John McCain?

Holly Otterbein
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Dec 21
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hits back at Pete Buttigieg without naming him at the Los Angeles rally. She says about claims of “purity tests”: “It’s called having values. It’s called giving a damn. It’s called having standards for your conduct to not be funded by billionaires.”

Unwinnable? With a small number of troops we are able to prop up the Afghan government indefinitely and maintain dronestrikes indefinitely, preventing the Taliban from taking the country back over and turning it back into a haven for dangerous terrorists.

While it is true that we will have to keep a small number of troops there indefinitely, doing so is no problem for us.

I say that we've won. The only danger now is progressives who want to force us to withdraw in the face of victory just like they did to us in Vietnam.

Evidently in "hitting back" at Buttigieg OAC forgot to note what he actually said about purity tests imposed on others which Warren herself could not meet. Elizabeth Warren's hypocritical record of taking big donor contributions in previous campaigns (and later transferring them to this one); providing lucrative services to corporations related to practices she now claims to be harmful and illegal; and her pattern of false and knowingly deceitful claims about her ethnic origins, personal wealth and, the supposed attendance of her children at public schools all attest to the low value she places on truthfulness.

AOC was referring specifically to fund raising purity tests themselves, seeing as how both Warren and Buttigieg fail them. AOC backs Sanders who hasn't received big donor contributions.

This has been known since the time of Alexander the Great and has been blamed as a primary cause for the fall of the Soviet Union. These facts were brought out in October 2001 and it was countered with something to the effect of, "Don't worry, we will be out long before it adversely affects the USA.". This is not new with Tulsi Gabbard, but has been repeated off on on for the last 18 years.

We should replace the outdated concept of "victory", maybe come up with a new term to rally around. These modern wars of choice just don't provide the same decisive outcomes which are so gloriously — or tragically — celebrated and memorialized. A professional fighting force has replaced the old citizen army of volunteers and conscripts. Irregular non-state armed groups operate outside the old "humanitarian" conventions. "Rules of war" are violated with impunity. We used to seek to prevent any military incursion from turning into a "quagmire". Now, with our highly efficient and technologically advanced troops, a relatively small-sized force can maintain a stalemate for eighteen years. Our casualties are significantly reduced; we're losing a lot less blood but we're spending a lot more treasure. It's hard to see what we've achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan other than preventing anyone else from establishing hostile states which might seek to undermine our interests or promote further hostilities. If that's really our goal, the quagmire has performed pretty well.

There's a hideous logic at work which keeps us there — is the situation we're trying to prevent really worse than the situation we actually have? Oh, we'll put up with it for a few years, maybe cost a few billion, well worth it, al Qaeda's on the run. A few more years go by. Well, can't pull out now, can't let all our efforts to have been made in vain, we can afford a trillion. Maybe we pull some forces out, say it's time to leave — then the puppet government we left behind starts teetering, hell we got to get back there fast. Another hundred billion. I think we're over two trillion sunk into those two conflicts now. Now the Trump administration is talking about a new global position and removing forces from West Africa and the Mideast. It remains to be seen if, in the face of new instabilities and insurgencies, the USA will be able to resist the redeployment of the successful quagmire strategy. One thing's for sure — it will be very difficult to declare "victory".

The reality is we are fighting Islam. Why we just do it over there I do not know.

I agree.



If we start hanging non-uniformed combatants as soon as we capture them, that could perhaps be minimized in the future.



Indeed it has. Perhaps we should work on ways to reduce costs, but I think maintaining the status quo for a few more centuries will be no problem at all.

AOC says she’d be honored to be VP.
Bernie says she’ll work in his White House.

I’m sure there must be an age requirement for Veep.

I love all these quotes!!!

It's so true. How can you win every battle yet loose the war. Easy, it's their home. When we leave, they're still there. It's their home. “You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.” —Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh in a warning to French colonialists in 1946.

Ho actually admired America. He petitioned Woodrow Wilson in France at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 to help Vietnam rid itself of French control. With a negative response he turned to Communism. He tried again during WWII with ridding their Japanese burden and then not let France retake their colonial mastery of them. FDR turned him down even though he, with an OSS assessment believed that Ho was more a Nationalist and would turn down Communism at a drop of the hat if he got American help.

Then, when the fighting with France became very severe and France was "losing" (don't forget the 10 to 1 kill ratio, which would remain accurate for another 20-25 years) Eisenhower turned him down. This was true, even though we knew Ho Chi Minh truly wanted a democracy with American help and we knew we would be able to save France's financial interests (Michelin, opium, others) and save face to boot. Win, win, win for everybody - Eisenhower turned him down and we would start fighting a split country in the late 50's in a secret war; turning to an open war in the 60's.

Yes, we win all the battles and lose the war because we are hard headed and can't accept victory in the "right" way, with a win, win, win for everybody!