59bear said:
mikecohen said:
59bear said:
stu said:
SFCityBear said:
helltopay1 said:
Dear Stu: i used to be an "old-school lefty." then, as the saying goes, " I was mugged by reality." ...
I have a similar evolution, but for me it was sudden and shocking. ...
My evolution went in the opposite direction, possibly a generational thing since I graduated in 1970. I grew up in an all-white suburb populated mostly by better-off members of my parents' generation. The prevailing political opinion was Republican, of the "I like Ike" variety. That included me until late in high school when the Vietnam War was blowing up. In that area politicians both Republican and Democrat seemed unable to tell the truth, exhibit any moral fiber, or even display basic competence. With that and other generational issues I became more anti-establishment than left or right After the war I've been concerned about the future and the common good, so I guess that makes me more of a liberal than a conservative.
Coming of age at Cal in Berkeley was also a powerful influence - the education both on and off campus was fantastic. I've never worked in Hollywood, or for any significant time in the private sector. Just public education and non-profits, so I haven't experienced the same "real world" most others have. Since leaving that homogeneous suburb I've met all sorts of interesting people, However as far as I know I've never met a communist, anarchist, Nazi, KKK member, or other political extremist. But I do notice the company different politicians keep and that colors my opinions.
Me too. I grew up in small, rural community where the only daily newspaper makes Fox News look positively liberal. Through college (and early adulthood) I was staunchly Republican though I drew the line at Goldwater. Started to swing away as Viet Nam got messier and, ultimately, untenable. My brother flew for Pan Am on some charter flights taking military personnel in country and developed serious questions about the legitimacy of our mission there based on what he observed during layovers. Over the last 50 years, I've drifted from far right to center left, am a political independent and wonder regularly about things like "Who put us in charge of the world?". Frankly, I'm thoroughly disgusted by the cycle of hyper-partisanship that we seem unable to escape. I have to seriously question if a society that could elect a Donald Trump to lead it is capable (or deserving) of survival. If we really want to put America first, it seems to me we'd be better off dealing with education, health care, gun violence, the environment and infrastructure at home and stop seeking unwinnable foreign military engagements. End of rant.
Power abhors a vacuum. Since so much of the wealth of the country depends on foreign trade, which by the nature of capitalism (even that practiced by Communist countries), is bound by the Mantra "Grow or Die", It falls to the most powerful who is willing to step into the breach to do what's possible to keep order. The failure to do so resulted in the hundreds of millions killed/maimed/displaced in World War II. Your list of laudable values we agree should be prioritized is therefore not mutually exclusive to the attempt to do what is possible for peace in the face of otherwise violence (which should be done much more with diplomacy and allies than is currently in vogue in our politics).
The critical phrase in your post is: "...do what is possible...". I have no issue with collaborative ventures such as Bush the First's war to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait or the mission to end genocide in the Balkans. What I find particularly frustrating is the failure to recognize the futility of western involvement in the Middle East in the face of the evidence of decades (Arabian Peninsula) or centuries (Afghanistan). In one place or the other we and several European powers have engaged, only to be swallowed up in the morass of tribalism. Foolish.
We appear to be on the same page.
When conjuring with what can sometimes be called imponderables, I often thing that Judgment is a *****, or an unforgiving mistress.
But, when I think of some of what has gone down with us in that region recently, I think that mis-judgment is too weak to deal with it.
Primary for me, of course, is the Post-911 Invasion of Iraq, which had the most awful human consequences since WWII, i.e., millions of innocent people killed, maimed, and displaced.
Secondarily, giving the country over to Iran, which at least has the virtue of representing its Shia majority.
But that, in turn, fed the ascendance of Sunni worse-than-Fundamentalist Isis, which was defeated essentially by the Kurds, for whom we (weirdly enough) had become great saviors, because we allowed them to become independent (instead of a despised minority),.maybe for the first time in their history, free from the Sunni/Shia division, to set up, with the oil that turned out to be in their territory, a thriving economy, and a more democratic politics than anywhere else in the region.
But now, of course, Trump, for God-only-knows-what reason, continues to make noises about throwing them under the bus.
Even worse about Iraq was of course that the only "reason" for going in there (again, post-911) was the most corrupt and cynical power grab by the un-elected and totally unrepresentative neo-libs, totally pulling the woefully stupid Bush II Administration by its dick (Chaney, so to speak). FWIW: I am a great fan of Nicole Wallace on MSNBC; but, whenever I see her, I can't help but thinking that she has a lot to answer for, given her participation in the Bush Administration which perpetrated that horror on the world.
On the other hand, the situation in Syria, which one can look at as a terrific failure by the Obama Administration (but which I am more inclined to attribute to the 180 degree turnaround by the Republican Congress which, before Obama, was all-in opposed to Assad, but which turned on a dime to oppose any Obama initiative or follow-through thus tieing his hands against military assistance to the Syrian majority Sunnis who had been bamboozled by Facebook and the Arab Spring to believe that they could over-throw Assad, with support from the West that turned out to be chimerica)l, with the result being the most wonderful opportunity for a Russian 3-birds-with-one-stone victory, i.e.,
(1) a strong Shia alliance to help against their restive Sunnis (especially the Chechens) within Russia,
(2) a major human tragedy affecting the majority Syrian population which resulted in an almost Vale-of-Tears forced migration of those people into Europe that created the strong, similar-to-Trumpian, aligned-with-Russian goals, anti-immigrant backlash, overthrowing the liberal Western European Democracies which had created such problems for Russia, just because their economic success and political freedom stood in such abject contrast to the economic and political horror that still pertains in Russia, all being played out in the worst way in Brexit and in the right wing ascendency in such places as Italy; and
(3) making Obama look very weak (great for Republican politics).
Still: I think we nevertheless would agree that a one-sized-fits-all policy, even in that region, won't get us anywhere, even in that region; and that total dis-engagement from the region could threaten the health of players there in the Muslim World who are more inclined to our point of view.
BUT: It is so correct to note that our batting average in the region is the worst -- Although one wonders whether the horrors produced in Yemen by the Saudi tactics of almost genocide in response to the Iran-backed Houthis overthrowing the majority Sunni government might have been exacerbated by Trump's ****-canning of the Iran Nuclear Deal, with no clue as to what to do next.
AND, think back to Rumsfeld's encouragement of Saddam to believe we'd back him against Iran, which we did. But, from a humanitarian point of view, the result, combined with the utter stupidity and inhumanity of the Iranian government, resulted in at least a million Iranian dead by being unconscionably being sent like lemmings into giant swamps and electrocuted by Saddam's electrification of those swamps, showing, maybe, that we are not the only malevolent force active in that region. But then, Saddam, emboldened, Invaded Kuwait, encouraged by Rumsfeld to believe we wouldn't intervene.
What a mess.
