Hey reddit, are there any other US-based redditors out there who are starting to feel like it might be a good idea to move to a different country?

wolfgangcm · 1 year

Thanks, wasn't aware of that!

wolfgangcm · 1 year

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

That's very strong advice.

nortel · 1 year

I think this basically says it all:

Al-Jazeera is al-Qaeda’s mouthpiece and broadcasts what Osama bin Laden has to say. [...] It bears the mark of imams and mosques in all its footage. There is no doubt that it is certainly against the West.

Does this really have anything to do with the content of AJ news, or simply the fact that this content is in Arabic, and may not represent accepted Western views in its reporting?

wang-banger · 1 year

stentson:

We're not talking about objective, ugly reports. We're talking about internal fighting and smears. Liberals tearing themselves apart while the conservatives march lock-step is a guaranteed loss.

If by "internal infighting and smears" you also mean "unverified, poor journalism", this is false. It isn't just Robert Gibbs' beloved "professional left" that has noticed the Obama administration's illiberal agenda: Major media outlets have described the Democrats' super-illiberal, unconstitutional policies of extrajudicial killings and extraordinary renditions in detail. The content of posts such as this one is not assertion or ad hominem screed: it's well-sourced, high-caliber journalism describing issues of grave moment for liberals. The left's concerns are real, empirically-based doubts about the Democrats and not the result of "infighting and smears" aimed at dividing the electorate.

For example, liberals apparently can't stop screaming about Obama not getting the public option, or how he is just as bad as Bush because he isn't Dennis Kucinich.

It's very clear that Barack Obama isn't Dennis Kucinich--Kucinich is a liberal, while the Obama administration is driven by policies and political theories that are Centrist in nature. When a Glenn Greenwald or Marcy Wheeler attacks Obama's policies, it's not a case of the left beating up on the left: it's the left saying "Look, these are not our policies or views! We don't want insurance industry bailouts, extrajudicial killings, indefinite detention, drone wars, and the entire host of Obama administration policies!"

Those whiny liberals you mention who just can't seem to understand that Obama is as liberal as he can be aren't dissatisfied, fringe ideologues--they're people who are angry at being essentially thrown under a bus by an administration that was elected for the purpose of advancing liberal policies.

This isn't about the truth.

It's empirically obvious that the Obama administration has not instantiated liberal policies in the areas mentioned above. The left takes issue with the Democratic Party because of these failings, just as it would with any regime that supports illiberal policies; on what basis, then, do you say that this isn't about the concrete reality of what the Democratic Party has done?

Can you explain why liberals' concerns are so much "infighting" when the truth is that the policies of the Democrats are not at all representative of the their aims, stentson? How would you explain to someone who opposes the expanding war in Pakistan that supporting the Democrats is in his/her interest?

wang-banger · 1 year

I just wish the circular firing squad would cool it a bit until November 3

I'm curious, wang-banger, if the left has been "accurately critical" of the Obama administration and the Democratic party in general, why do you want them to "cool it" at a time when voting Americans need accurate information about the parties they vote for?

What do you think? Is it more valuable to the electorate to have well-sourced, accurate, but potentially ugly reports about a party (in this case, the Democrats), or cherry-picked talking points argued by pundits whose sole goal is to sway voters to the party line? Are you suggesting that journalists on the left should avoid publishing material that may harm the election chances of Democratic candidates?

If you could clarify why you'd like journalists like Greenwald to "cool it", wang-banger, it would do a lot to elucidate the point of this post.

EDIT: Grammar

illbite · 1 year

Reddit, President Obama just showed a lot of courage in speaking out against public opposition to the Ground Zero mosque.

And, by promptly walking back his strongly-worded original statement, has followed what seems to be the Administration's policy of appearing to defend civil liberties while not actually taking anything like a substantial position.

antneon · 1 year

It seems that shutting down libraries would devastate the US' already dismal education situation. But wait, that would be good for Fox. Less fact-checking, less public feedback, more viewers.

marquis_of_chaos · 1 year

Do you still want those Calvin Klein jeans?

twenty7w · 1 year

Someone needs to Office Space this machine. now.

texture · 1 year

None of this will be good for quality of debate on reddit, unless we rigorously stick to upvoting/downvoting as far as possible on grounds of the merit of each post. Let's not get sucked into a downward spiral of revenge voting.

Right you are.

yanw · 1 year

This is very, very bad.

johnrclem · 1 year

Let's see:

Invasion of Kosovo
Airstrikes and sanctions in Iraq
DMCA
NAFTA
Repealed Glass-Steagall

Why are we celebrating this guy again? Oh, because he's a Democrat, and therefore "left"? It makes me sad that my generation of Americans looks to centrists like Clinton as "the great liberals".

solohunter · 1 year

Absolutely. Most of these issues don't seem to violate the "harm principle", i.e. they don't tend to affect others negatively. However, the US already has quite a history of regulating individual choice in the name of individual safety, so it's not clear why this would be such an unusual step.

On the other hand, regulating advertising, or requiring that food producers clearly state the risks of consuming highly processed junk food, might be a decent compromise in that it would still allow individuals to choose for themselves. Any thoughts?

slavetoinsurance · 1 year

tootie: Thanks very much for the clarification.

solohunter · 1 year

First of all, the term "sin tax" has to be dropped; "sin" is a religious concept, and this terminology pulls the discussion away from social welfare and onto the ground of value judgment.

If the state has a basic commitment to protect the lives and welfare of its citizens, why should it regulate the sale and use of dangerous substances like heroin and tobacco, but not those that have played the biggest roles in the US obesity epidemic--namely, soda and fast food?

It doesn't seem like paternalism to protect citizens from stuff that's posing a direct threat to the public health. The threats are real, and many; we've even got an industry that's happy to profit by our addictions to increasingly unhealthy foods.

anutensil · 1 year

Thanks, good interview--it's becoming clearer everyday how little we know about how these soldiers act on the ground. This is definitely material for an investigation.

johnstevens21 · 1 year

Congratulations. Now do something to change it.

delelles · 1 year

Let's hope that Lieberman's idiotic citation of China to back up his views will ensure that the whole "kill-switch" plan is flushed down the toilet.

churchdemo · 1 year

Anyone in Assange's position has very good cause to fear the governments his organization "opens". It's probable that the danger of his becoming a victim of an al-Walaki-style targeted killing has been exaggerated, but this doesn't mean Assange and WikiLeaks are safe from the threat of arrest, disruption, or government-organized character assassinations. His fears are well-founded, and there is little reason to suspect someone who generally avoids publicizing himself of making a bid for the limelight.

churchdemo · 1 year

According to Greenwald's recent and highly comprehensive piece, the "evidence" currently consists of rumors about a Pentagon "manhunt" for Assange:

On June 10, former New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, writing in The Daily Beast, gave voice to anonymous "American officials" to announce that "Pentagon investigators" were trying "to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks [Julian Assange] for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security." Some news outlets used that report to declare that there was a "Pentagon manhunt" underway for Assange -- as though he's some sort of dangerous fugitive.

It's certainly possible that they'd try to detain him or make it hard for Wikileaks to continue its work. All of this "manhunt" and "national security threat" language is most likely an attempt to discredit Assange and his organization. As a "courageous journalist", Assange is a threat; as a borderline-criminal "foreign national" (Adrian Lamo's term) publishing classified information from a desire to harm the US, he'd be far less dangerous to the Pentagon's PR.

[Edit: fixed quotation formatting]

dirtmaster · 1 year

Stuff like this isn't helping anyone.

snipewiz · 1 year

Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is “in Afghanistan for testing.”

What is it being tested on? I guess something that can feel pain. But wouldn't using something like this even on lab animals be completely wrong?

wolfgangcm

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