"If I'm right-wing for not believing everything I hear and not trusting politicians on the left any more than the right. Maybe that is just fine."
I never said any such thing. The problem is not that you don't believe everything you hear - the problem is that you can't differentiate from the obvious propaganda of Fox News and serious journalism.
You believe too much of what you hear uncritically - not too little as you pretend I meant. But intentionally - in a bid to wilfully mischaracterize what I actually wrote - or unintentionally by not understanding what I wrote you completely turned it around.
Likewise I never wrote anywhere that you should trust politicians on the left more then the right. My point is that if you start by getting correct facts instead of propaganda you'll soon discover which politicians are actually telling the truth and which are full of shit.
Yeah - you're most likely rather far to the right of me but then so are most Americans to most other westerners. It's the consequence of you only having two right-wing party's to chose from in your national politics. The Democrats are like any mainstream right-wing party in western Europe and the Republicans are far of the right end of the political spectrum.
By only having those two big parties, and having the view constantly reinforced by the republicans and your useless mainstream media that the Democrats are some how a leftist party you end up being right-wing when you consider yourselves independents or even liberal as you do.
And you well might be those things in an American context - but America is not an honest representation of the actual political spectrum. You're the strange outlier where everything is twisted hard right.
Which of course suits especially the republicans but also to a degree the democrats as it means they can denounce any competition to the left of them as basically communists.
Something both major parties routinely do.
So you end up believing your only "choice" is between two right-wing parties who's major difference is that one at least accepts reality and scientific facts, while the other lives in it's own little fantasy bubble.
But none of them comes anywhere near of advocating basic social democratic policies that exist and are in place in various forms in every other western country.
Bernie Sanders - who is the only politician in national US politics that calls himself a socialist - is what a regular western left-wing politician looks like. He champions policies that exist in every other western country. Policies that have existed here for decades and who are for the most part not even challenged by the political right but considered completely common sense.
Only in bizzaro-land America where everything is twisted hard right is the basic right to health care for every citizen of the nation a bone of contention - as an example. But there are many other policies that are just as commonly accepted everywhere else but in America.
So of course the average Americans political compass is off to the rest of the western world when you grow up believing your own dysfuntional political system to be the norm. But it's not - it's the outlier.
"How far to the left are you? Extremes are often appleaning but impractical."
I'm a socialist. Most Swedes and Scandinavians are even if they don't understand that or identifies as such - even those who vote for our right-wing parties - since the support for a robust social safety-net is almost unanimous.
The people who vote for the political right want small changes in this system - they're not at all for the abolishment of the system as a whole.
Not even our right-wing party's say they want anything like an American system here - since they know that would completely destroy their chances in any election.
Well the right-wing will always CLAIM that a robust social safety-net is not only "impractical" but outright impossible. The political right have always claimed that - in every country - since they don't want those policies.
But then the left has come to power, implemented the policies and they have worked just fine for decades upon decades.
And now any right-wing politician in the west knows that if they mess with the social safety-net they're out on their asses come next election.
Because unlike in America, in the rest of the western world the real political left is represented in every parliament. Usually a social democratic party is the largest or second largest in each parliament and there are usually one or two smaller leftist parties to the left of them as well.
Unlike in America where the two right-wing parties have for decades ignored issues that actually effect peoples lives deeply and spent their time mostly fighting over social issues like school-prayer or gays in the military.
In the meantime the averaged Americans pay have stagnated and the middle-class have been diminishing while the super-rich have only gotten richer and richer.
"What is important is that we not inflate an issue into something it is not."
The quote by Obama describes the experience for millions of Americans of colour today. In what way does this completely true statement "inflate an issue into something it is not"?
Please explain that to me.
"The world never has been and it never will be perfect."
That is what the political right - who always, in every country, represent those who benefits the most from preserving the old order - have always and will always say. "Everything is working just fine for ME right now - so why change anything?"
While socialists and liberals have looked at ALL of society and said: "Surely we must be able to do better then this?"
And then they have - against the rights angry protests.
In the very preamble of your own constitution is says "in Order to form a more perfect Union" - it doesn't say "ah fuck it, this is good enough".
If present days republicans had been alive back then they would have rooted for King George and cursed those reckless liberals for upsetting the "natural order" they where benefiting from.
True liberals and socialist have always and will always try to make the word a better place while the right doesn't give a shit about the world as long as they get to keep all their stuff and can acquire ever more stuff until they die. That's why the right don't give a shit about climate change - it doesn't threaten their stuff right now, so it's not a "real" problem to them.
"However, if you cannot see the wrongness it what the President said I don't think I'm in a position to explain it."
No I certainly can't see anything wrong with truthfully describing what millions of Americans experience. That is what any true leader should do. That's why we in Europe recognised Obama as a grown up - this is what real leaders do. They don't shy away from the problems of their societies but tries to address them for the good of the whole nation.
You seem to propose that he should have ignored - like so many president before him have already done - these problems in the vain hope that if you just shut your eyes and ears hard enough they will go away? Well they won't - history shows you that. They only fester and grow until they explode in violence.
"Only know that it cost the lives of hundreds of young black men who, were not necessarily incessant or guilty but, did not deserve to die. It cost the lives of a handful of police officers whose only crime was wearing a badge. It cost the trust of millions in the system and each other. Through fear, it did win the party a few minority votes. these votes were why he did what he did. He also alienated the party's base. Which was not the plan."
This is just plain Fox News propaganda talking - trying to pin all kinds of deaths and social unrest on some very mild and completely factually correct statement Obama made.
Read up on history and see what happens when you ignore the plight of the people for too long - you can start with the French and Russian revolutions and the causes for them.
This is not in any way Obamas fault, this has been decades in the making by an American society that haven't dealt with it's problem but chosen to followed the right-wing approach of ignoring them.
Also the bit about Obama alienating the party's base is a Fox News wet dream - he's done no such thing - he's leaving office with amongst the highest approval ratings of any president.
But I guess their portrayal is that the people who voted for Obama last time but Trump this time around did it because they think Trump is awesome and he and Fox News is right in everything they say, right? Well that's of course not true.
The vast majority who supported Obama but didn't vote for Clinton did so because they saw her as untrustworthy - a picture relentlessly pushed by unproven allegations against here by Fox, Trump and every single republican for decades.
Trump has a hardcore group of racist supporters but his electoral victory and popular loss is no proof of a sea change in the American electorate where they suddenly all became hardcore right-wingers - it's just people voting AGAINST one candidate slightly more then they voted AGAINST another and the un-democratic American system of electors deciding the winner.
"The NYT is a regular read of mine but I would not say it is any better, only different."
"Fox is just loud and obnoxious about it."
Once again then - that you can't see the difference between outright propaganda and a highly reputable newspaper of record like the NYT says a lot about why you see the world as you do. When you can't differentiate fact from fiction you become an easy pawn for lying politicians.
""...it's not in Americas own interest if the Russians where to start gobble up European countries." I agree no it wouldn't be, but few Americans would object. We are tired of war here on both sides. The people that have loud voices get air time but most of us are done. Russia knows this and knows Trump. Europe should keep an eye on Russia because the USA will probably not come to the rescue."
Once again - read up on history.
If one power ever again tries to control the European continent by force America will sooner or later be forced to engage in the conflict. But the longer you try to avoid it the costlier it will become in the end. If America had been allowed to enter the League of Nations like Woodrow Wilson wanted after the end of the first world war there might not have been a second, but isolationists in congress wouldn't allow America to be "sucked in" to the world problems. Well that worked splendidly - didn't it?
An active America in the League of Nations in the 20' and 30's could have stopped or at least countered not only European fascism but Japanese imperialism in China. Instead you ended up fighting them all decades later when they had built up their power.
The same goes for Putins Russia today. It's nowhere near the power of the old Soviet Union - yet. But give Putin another ten years to build up his forces and give him some easy victories in the Ukraine and Syria to solidify his support from the Russian people and Russia will be back as a major superpower rivalling the US again.
Of course Trump won't be around by then (unless he subverts the constitution completely) but the rest of America - and the world - will once again have to pay the consequences for America believing it can ignore the world.
And before you start complaining about the pressure of being the "world police" - suck it up. This is what being the worlds only superpower means.
You have the position that every contender wants and they won't rest until they knock you of that perch.
If you don't respond against potential treats to the world order when they're small they'll grow big and come home to roost - that's just the way it is.
0
@lesserevil
"If I'm right-wing for not believing everything I hear and not trusting politicians on the left any more than the right. Maybe that is just fine."
I never said any such thing. The problem is not that you don't believe everything you hear - the problem is that you can't differentiate from the obvious propaganda of Fox News and serious journalism.
You believe too much of what you hear uncritically - not too little as you pretend I meant. But intentionally - in a bid to wilfully mischaracterize what I actually wrote - or unintentionally by not understanding what I wrote you completely turned it around.
Likewise I never wrote anywhere that you should trust politicians on the left more then the right. My point is that if you start by getting correct facts instead of propaganda you'll soon discover which politicians are actually telling the truth and which are full of shit.
Yeah - you're most likely rather far to the right of me but then so are most Americans to most other westerners. It's the consequence of you only having two right-wing party's to chose from in your national politics. The Democrats are like any mainstream right-wing party in western Europe and the Republicans are far of the right end of the political spectrum.
By only having those two big parties, and having the view constantly reinforced by the republicans and your useless mainstream media that the Democrats are some how a leftist party you end up being right-wing when you consider yourselves independents or even liberal as you do.
And you well might be those things in an American context - but America is not an honest representation of the actual political spectrum. You're the strange outlier where everything is twisted hard right.
Which of course suits especially the republicans but also to a degree the democrats as it means they can denounce any competition to the left of them as basically communists.
Something both major parties routinely do.
So you end up believing your only "choice" is between two right-wing parties who's major difference is that one at least accepts reality and scientific facts, while the other lives in it's own little fantasy bubble.
But none of them comes anywhere near of advocating basic social democratic policies that exist and are in place in various forms in every other western country.
Bernie Sanders - who is the only politician in national US politics that calls himself a socialist - is what a regular western left-wing politician looks like. He champions policies that exist in every other western country. Policies that have existed here for decades and who are for the most part not even challenged by the political right but considered completely common sense.
Only in bizzaro-land America where everything is twisted hard right is the basic right to health care for every citizen of the nation a bone of contention - as an example. But there are many other policies that are just as commonly accepted everywhere else but in America.
So of course the average Americans political compass is off to the rest of the western world when you grow up believing your own dysfuntional political system to be the norm. But it's not - it's the outlier.
"How far to the left are you? Extremes are often appleaning but impractical."
I'm a socialist. Most Swedes and Scandinavians are even if they don't understand that or identifies as such - even those who vote for our right-wing parties - since the support for a robust social safety-net is almost unanimous.
The people who vote for the political right want small changes in this system - they're not at all for the abolishment of the system as a whole.
Not even our right-wing party's say they want anything like an American system here - since they know that would completely destroy their chances in any election.
Well the right-wing will always CLAIM that a robust social safety-net is not only "impractical" but outright impossible. The political right have always claimed that - in every country - since they don't want those policies.
But then the left has come to power, implemented the policies and they have worked just fine for decades upon decades.
And now any right-wing politician in the west knows that if they mess with the social safety-net they're out on their asses come next election.
Because unlike in America, in the rest of the western world the real political left is represented in every parliament. Usually a social democratic party is the largest or second largest in each parliament and there are usually one or two smaller leftist parties to the left of them as well.
Unlike in America where the two right-wing parties have for decades ignored issues that actually effect peoples lives deeply and spent their time mostly fighting over social issues like school-prayer or gays in the military.
In the meantime the averaged Americans pay have stagnated and the middle-class have been diminishing while the super-rich have only gotten richer and richer.
"What is important is that we not inflate an issue into something it is not."
The quote by Obama describes the experience for millions of Americans of colour today. In what way does this completely true statement "inflate an issue into something it is not"?
Please explain that to me.
"The world never has been and it never will be perfect."
That is what the political right - who always, in every country, represent those who benefits the most from preserving the old order - have always and will always say. "Everything is working just fine for ME right now - so why change anything?"
While socialists and liberals have looked at ALL of society and said: "Surely we must be able to do better then this?"
And then they have - against the rights angry protests.
In the very preamble of your own constitution is says "in Order to form a more perfect Union" - it doesn't say "ah fuck it, this is good enough".
If present days republicans had been alive back then they would have rooted for King George and cursed those reckless liberals for upsetting the "natural order" they where benefiting from.
True liberals and socialist have always and will always try to make the word a better place while the right doesn't give a shit about the world as long as they get to keep all their stuff and can acquire ever more stuff until they die. That's why the right don't give a shit about climate change - it doesn't threaten their stuff right now, so it's not a "real" problem to them.
"However, if you cannot see the wrongness it what the President said I don't think I'm in a position to explain it."
No I certainly can't see anything wrong with truthfully describing what millions of Americans experience. That is what any true leader should do. That's why we in Europe recognised Obama as a grown up - this is what real leaders do. They don't shy away from the problems of their societies but tries to address them for the good of the whole nation.
You seem to propose that he should have ignored - like so many president before him have already done - these problems in the vain hope that if you just shut your eyes and ears hard enough they will go away? Well they won't - history shows you that. They only fester and grow until they explode in violence.
"Only know that it cost the lives of hundreds of young black men who, were not necessarily incessant or guilty but, did not deserve to die. It cost the lives of a handful of police officers whose only crime was wearing a badge. It cost the trust of millions in the system and each other. Through fear, it did win the party a few minority votes. these votes were why he did what he did. He also alienated the party's base. Which was not the plan."
This is just plain Fox News propaganda talking - trying to pin all kinds of deaths and social unrest on some very mild and completely factually correct statement Obama made.
Read up on history and see what happens when you ignore the plight of the people for too long - you can start with the French and Russian revolutions and the causes for them.
This is not in any way Obamas fault, this has been decades in the making by an American society that haven't dealt with it's problem but chosen to followed the right-wing approach of ignoring them.
Also the bit about Obama alienating the party's base is a Fox News wet dream - he's done no such thing - he's leaving office with amongst the highest approval ratings of any president.
But I guess their portrayal is that the people who voted for Obama last time but Trump this time around did it because they think Trump is awesome and he and Fox News is right in everything they say, right? Well that's of course not true.
The vast majority who supported Obama but didn't vote for Clinton did so because they saw her as untrustworthy - a picture relentlessly pushed by unproven allegations against here by Fox, Trump and every single republican for decades.
Trump has a hardcore group of racist supporters but his electoral victory and popular loss is no proof of a sea change in the American electorate where they suddenly all became hardcore right-wingers - it's just people voting AGAINST one candidate slightly more then they voted AGAINST another and the un-democratic American system of electors deciding the winner.
"The NYT is a regular read of mine but I would not say it is any better, only different."
"Fox is just loud and obnoxious about it."
Once again then - that you can't see the difference between outright propaganda and a highly reputable newspaper of record like the NYT says a lot about why you see the world as you do. When you can't differentiate fact from fiction you become an easy pawn for lying politicians.
""...it's not in Americas own interest if the Russians where to start gobble up European countries." I agree no it wouldn't be, but few Americans would object. We are tired of war here on both sides. The people that have loud voices get air time but most of us are done. Russia knows this and knows Trump. Europe should keep an eye on Russia because the USA will probably not come to the rescue."
Once again - read up on history.
If one power ever again tries to control the European continent by force America will sooner or later be forced to engage in the conflict. But the longer you try to avoid it the costlier it will become in the end. If America had been allowed to enter the League of Nations like Woodrow Wilson wanted after the end of the first world war there might not have been a second, but isolationists in congress wouldn't allow America to be "sucked in" to the world problems. Well that worked splendidly - didn't it?
An active America in the League of Nations in the 20' and 30's could have stopped or at least countered not only European fascism but Japanese imperialism in China. Instead you ended up fighting them all decades later when they had built up their power.
The same goes for Putins Russia today. It's nowhere near the power of the old Soviet Union - yet. But give Putin another ten years to build up his forces and give him some easy victories in the Ukraine and Syria to solidify his support from the Russian people and Russia will be back as a major superpower rivalling the US again.
Of course Trump won't be around by then (unless he subverts the constitution completely) but the rest of America - and the world - will once again have to pay the consequences for America believing it can ignore the world.
And before you start complaining about the pressure of being the "world police" - suck it up. This is what being the worlds only superpower means.
You have the position that every contender wants and they won't rest until they knock you of that perch.
If you don't respond against potential treats to the world order when they're small they'll grow big and come home to roost - that's just the way it is.