UnderpantsWeevil comments on Zelenskyy says 'Moscow will burn' if Russian strikes continue

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (7 children)

Eisenhower was, compared to today, still a reasonably decent person

glances at the Korean War, the Dirty Wars south of the border, CIA operations across the Middle East and East Asia, backing for the early Apartheid government in South Africa, Operation Plumbbob, Nixon...

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (6 children)

Yes, Eisenhower was a scumbag. But compared to the monstrosity and absurd corruption of today’s U.S. regime, even he seems halfway civilized.

But yeah, it’s true—the U.S. has far more terrible crimes on its conscience than its global reputation would have you believe.

But hey, that’s all in the past now. In that sense, Drump is actually the best representative this country has ever had.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (5 children)

Yes, Eisenhower was a scumbag. But compared to

The big difference between Eisenhower's two terms and Trump's two terms boils down to the alignment of the US national media at the time. Eisenhower had them under lock-and-key day one. Trump's had an off-and-on relationship going back to his Central Park Five ad.

The dirty truth of Presidential politics is that lots of these guys are corrupt, lots of them are incompetent, and lots of them are complete assholes. But public opinion hinges on whether the national media wants to scream at them. Trump getting into a four month long disastrous war with Iran is - frankly - a huge improvement over the Bush Jr (decades in Iraq/Afghanistan) or Reagan (instigated the Iran-Iraq War which killed millions) or Eisenhower (toppled multiple liberal Middle Eastern governments from the inside). Assuming this peace deal sticks, he's going to go down as one of the least reprehensible US Presidents to meddle in Middle Eastern politics, by volume of atrocities committed.

Drump is actually the best representative this country has ever had.

He's definitely a symptom of the US decline. But given our nightmare run at foreign policy across the region, that's somehow managed to be an improvement.

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (4 children)

Do you really think that Trump and his billionaire cronies don’t have the media under their thumb?

I don’t think there’s anything left in the U.S. that could even be called a free press, and the major social media platforms—as well as, now, the AI cloud providers—are completely controlled by billionaires who, out of sheer opportunism, belong to the Trump camp anyway.

The fact that the Orange One is still in such a bad spot seems to me to be simply due to the fact that he’s such a completely unscrupulous monster. I mean, he’s mentioned thousands of times in the Eppstein Files alone and allows himself to be bribed as openly as is even conceivable.

The fact that he’s still in office at all borders on a miracle and is probably only conceivable in the land of unlimited possibilities.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

Do you really think that Trump and his billionaire cronies don’t have the media under their thumb?

I think media owners regularly have to discipline Trump with negative news stories and right wing hecklers.

Neocon Hecklers got him into the Iran War. Wall Street hecklers got him to sign a deal. And Zionist hecklers will likely convince him to blow it up again.

The fact that he’s still in office at all borders on a miracle

Once you prove you can get elected, you develop a level of inertia that keeps getting you elected.

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

Once you prove you can get elected, you develop a level of inertia that keeps getting you elected.

Well, I think the key factor that determines who gets elected and who gets to stay in office in the U.S. is money and pandering to the oligarchs, who have been ruling this country for a long time now.

The whole “democracy” thing is little more than a show, if you ask me.

There are plenty of reasons for this mess: starting with the Constitution itself, through the absurd Electoral College and two-party system and the corrupt Supreme Court, all the way to unlimited campaign donations and the fact that there is no free press.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

The whole “democracy” thing is little more than a show, if you ask me.

American Democracy has a lot of angles to it. If money was the only object, Jeb Bush would be in his third term.

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[–] DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 point 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Let's see. Maybe there will soon be the first president in modern US History to serve three terms—if he lives that long. With ICE—which, given its strict adherence to party line and its exorbitant budget, equivalent to the military spending of a medium-sized country, seems to me to be nothing more than a secret police force—this regime certainly has the means to do so, I'd say.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that things will eventually start looking up again for U.S. citizens! However, I fear that if things continue as they have been, the downward spiral will unfortunately continue—at least for the people.

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