• blarth ( blarth@thelemmy.club ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Hilarious. At least one of these isn’t even Obama, the 2008 mortgage crisis that resulted in the bailouts was under GWB and the bailouts began under him. Just like the inflation from the COVID checks Trump even signed that got blamed Biden.

    • MrNobody ( MrNobody@quokk.au ) 
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      50
      ·
      2 days ago

      I like seeing empire mask off. The PR of decades past has allowed the word to forgive American crimes, it’s harder to do when we see it laid bare.

      • I think you have a good point here.

        I only wish this had led to an actual reckoning of the country’s true history rather than the much more common reaction, “Trump ruined our great country!”

        Much like instead of reflection about neo-colonialism after 9/11, Bush spat out “they hate our freedoms.”

    • Democrats aren’t perfect so stop discouraging people from voting third party and using their influence to put pressure on the Democrat establishment. They’ve gotten this bold and useless because they know that no matter how shitty or ineffective they are theres a horde of ‘vote blue no matter who’ voters who will just bend over and take it. Because it’s always ‘the most important election ever’ and ‘not the time’. But if people hadnt started believing that shit decades ago, you wouldn’t be in this position now. Sunken cost fallacy is real and is being exploited against you. Break the pattern.

      • Grail ( Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        10 hours ago

        Voting third party always hurts the voter’s interests in FPTP systems. It’s called the spoiler effect. Learn how the US electoral system works before telling people how to vote.

      • Natanael ( Natanael@infosec.pub ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        16 hours ago

        In primaries that’s safe.

        In ranked choice voting that’s safe.

        In first past the post elections, that’s suicide.

        The problem is all the rich donors and political consultants getting more influence than regular people. You break that by electing people willing fight back instead of comply, and by putting pressure on the politicians who take the bribes.

        You don’t put pressure on them by promising to give the party that’s even worse more power, that only tells those politicians that their best option is to aim for the shitty type of voters voting for the bad party.

        • I mean, that’s not true though. If the Democrats had seen a sizable percentage of their voting base swinging left anytime in the last 30 years, then they wouldn’t have been so quick to try the failed strategy of courting centrist Republicans. The lie they feed you every time is that you have to suck it up and vote for the lesser evil ‘just this once’ and it works because their voting base is self-policing. But if enough of you had said ‘no that’s enough of this bullshit’ decades ago, the world would be a very different place. It can’t keep being ‘just this once’ every single election.

          • dubs ( dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) 
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            1 day ago

            If the Democrats had seen a sizable percentage of their voting base swinging left anytime in the last 30 years, then they wouldn’t have been so quick to try the failed strategy of courting centrist Republicans.

            I’m a third-party voter, and Democratic party hater, but I’m not sure this is true. The Democrats have repeatedly shown that they would rather let the Republicans take control, than let Leftists have a shot.

            I agree with the rest of what you said though

          • It’s not a lie they feed me. It just the system they built. Everyone knows it and short of violent revolution, it requires dismantling from the inside.

            And we’ve all tried sitting out or voting third party. That’s given us the even worse outcomes.

            But establishment dems don’t even get on the ballot if they’re primaried.

            I’m not really into accelerationist rhetoric.

            • When has a sizable portion of the Democrat base ever sat out or voted third party? Sure, individuals may have tried once or twice, but the point is that it needs to be a sustained effort that’s not being actively discouraged by the rest of the voters. By calling them Russian trolls or bots or idiots or whatever else. I think it’s way more idiotic to keep doing the same thing over and over, keep watching the party shift further and further right, and keep saying “theres no other choice! Game theory! It’s functionally a two party system! Not voting for Democrats is the same as voting Republican!”. That’s such a short-sighted point of view, and only works if you look at each election in isolation, not on a long enough timescale. If you’re not willing to do it for yourself, maybe do it for the voters 3 decades from now.

              • Grail ( Grail@multiverse.soulism.net ) 
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                10 hours ago

                https://themidtermproject.org/turnout

                According to this, 74% of the USA sat out of the midterms this year. Surely you agree that 74% of the population includes “a sizable portion of the Democrat base”. The Democrats are so far right, people on America’s left outnumber people on America’s right 2:1. And the Democrats keep losing elections, because even though most Americans support UBI, universal healthcare, free education, electoral reform, and clean energy, they don’t vote for the Democrats. Non-voters got America into this fascism situation. It will take people voting, protesting, and giving mutual aid to get America out of it.

  • Take the al-Awlaki thingie for example. I always find it interesting that using drone strikes on an objectively evil group (in this case Al Qaeda) gets so many panties get knotted…

    “The extrajudicial killing”… Do these people really expect that when fighting such groups, the only possible way should be to parachute in, wrestle them to ground until they submit and extradite them to the US to face a judge?

    Imagine if we had to do that with the nazis

    • The problem is that what you are advocating could allow the president to label any citizen traveling abroad as a terrorist and then drone strike them. al-Awalaki was definitely an extremist who’s teaching definitely radicalized young men into joining al qaeda, however it wasn’t ever definitivly proved he was a member, or even an immediate threat. As a US citizen you are allowed to exercise your freedom of speech, even if it leads to people joining an extremist group. It’s not like we’re out here drone striking Alex Jones or any other right winged agitator.

      Imagine if we had to do that with the nazis

      We actually did do this to American citizens who fought for the Nazi. They were tracked down, court martialed or tried in federal court, and then sent to prison for treason.

        • Do you think it’s impossible to definitively tell if someone is or isn’t a member of al qaeda?

          Expanding on that, if it’s impossible to tell if someone is or isn’t a member of al qaeda, does that give the president carte blanche to declare anyone who’s knowingly or unknowingly associated with the organization as a terrorist deemed worthy of an airstrike?

            • I am saying that is a possibility, if not for him than for someone in a similar hypothetical. Especially considering that organizations like the Taliban are still designated as a foreign terrorist organization, while also considered the legitimate leadership org of Afghanistan.

              The point is that the criteria required for the government to label someone as a terrorist is subjective. Which is kinda important considering it means that after being labeled a terrorist the government is allowed to kill you.

              that even if he knowingly was, that it’s impossible to tell for anyone?

              Even if you are knowingly associating with an org labeled as a terrorist organization, it does not mean the government can murder you. People interviewing Hamas and telling people of their experiences about the genocide are not automatically targeted by drones. American citizens working in Afghanistan are not considered terrorists because they work with the Taliban.

              • Sure, and when it’s about your hypothetical example of someone not doing evil things I certainly agree

                But why pick this case, where it certainly worked as advertized? It would make much more sense to pick an example where they clearly had the wrong motives

                • Sure, and when it’s about your hypothetical example of someone not doing evil things I certainly agree

                  Because using it on this man who may have been doing “evil” things, opens the window on it being used on perfectly innocent people. My point is that a president should not have the ability to do it all.

                  But why pick this case, where it certainly worked as advertized?

                  You think the government killing one questionably “evil” man validates the killing of two innocent children? The government should not be able to extrajudicially murder any of its own civilians. I really don’t see how you cannot fathom the potential harm that can come about by allowing the government this kind of power.

    • TN2VOA ( TN2VOA@reddthat.com ) 
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      14 hours ago

      The big thing for me is that he was a US citizen. The president does not have the authority to order the extrajudicial murder of a US citizen. Anwar Al-Awaki was a US citizen, so were his children, who were also subjected to extrajudicial murder.

      • I think that’s a pretty sad take, really.

        If he’s lucky enough to be born in the US: treat him with knightly virtue and send in delta to extradite him and bring him before the king. If not: treat him like a peasant and just throw his body in the ditch

            • derfaucet ( derfaucet@beehaw.org ) 
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 hours ago

              Laws are ethics that have been debated, voted upon and written down for all to reference.

              A government that does not conform to its own law is weaker for it. This illegal action can now be called out as precident if the president finds it their ethical duty to drone strike another US citizen for potentially false accusations. And wether an accusation is false or not should be determined in a court of law. The ethics of that was heavily debated back before Habeus Corpus was made law in the 1700s after being debated for over 500 years.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

              Ethics are essentially opinion that vary from person to person and can change on a dime.

              If the next president decides federated social media platforms are clearly a bunch of psychos plotting to kill everyone and it’s their ethical duty to drone strike every member and their family, I’d hope the president would obey the law and arrest everyone to be judged in court.

              I’d hope they wouldn’t drone strike everyone and say, "Eh, Obama did it, why can’t I?

                • Yeah I suggest you watch just any war documentary and ask yourself the question “where are the courts??”

                  Can you not delineate between a war against a separate government, and a government killing its own civilians without due process?

                  And yes… There are always courts involved in just about any modern conflict. The Nuremberg trials for example kinda cover what should happen when a government participates in extrajudicial murder of their civilians.

    • It’s it important, legal concept of imminence. It’s self-defense if somebody points a gun at you, and you kill them in response. It’s murder if you go to somebody’s house, find them, and kill them because they hang out with bad dudes.

      The al-Awlaki case was more like the latter example. He was accused of being a propagandist for al-Qaeda. He had not taken up arms, he had not engaged in violence, and any threat he posed was not imminent.

      Moreover, the Obama administration recognized this, and argued that the President’s assessment constituted due process of law, without the courts. Practically speaking, it means that the President can charge, try, and carry out the sentence of death, and there’s no responsibility on anyone’s part to prove that it was justified.

      The upshot is that, for example, the President can now say that you’re an “antifa terrorist,” and execute you, even if all you did was post a meme mocking Hegseth, and you have no recourse.

      • At a certain point, things turn into a war where it’s impossible to go ask politely to turn themselves in.

        If you ‘hang out’ with a group that’s at war with the US, and not in your ‘posting memes’ sense but in the kinda more serious ‘multiple bomb attacks’ sense, yeah then you run the risk of not getting the full judicial process

        • starman2112 ( starman2112@sh.itjust.works ) 
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          7 hours ago

          How does a judicial system establish that you hang out with a group that’s at war with the US without the full judicial process? What’s stopping the judicial system from denying anyone the full judicial process? What’s stopping them from deciding you hang out with a group that’s at war with the US?

        • Gah, I keep forgetting how hard abstract thinking is. In more concrete terms: President Obama accused Anwar al-Awlaki of being affiliated with al-Qaeda. We don’t actually know if that was true. The administration never had to prove it in court; it just killed him.

          The reason that we have due process of law, and courts, is to protect the innocent. Forget memes, that was just an example. Under the precedent set by Obama, the President can convict you of any crime just by saying so. You and I could be affiliated with al-Qaeda, and threaten national security. Period. Don’t bother to deny it, you are a terrorist, and there’s nobody and no process to hear your denial. No lawyers, no court, no appeals. If the President said so, so it is.

          And that’s dangerous.

          • We pretty much know that he was though - he posted the videos himself. It’s pretty naive to think that only a court could ‘actually’ decide on that.

            And do you have the same concern for the tens of thousands other (alleged) Al Qaeda members they bombed? Or the tens of thousands (alleged) ISIS members they bombed?

            • SwingingTheLamp ( SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip ) 
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              10 hours ago

              So it would’ve been really easy to prove the case in court. That’s not an excuse not to have a trial. They knew where he was (to drone strike him), they could’ve tried to arrest him. Hell, there’s even the concept of trial in absentia. Killing anybody and saying that the President’s say-so is all the process that due is exactly what kings do, and what the American Revolution was about.

              And, yes, I do have a problem with the way that many other cases were handled. We’re well down the slippy slope to a place where the man in charge can blow up boats in the Caribbean without evidence or trial, solely on his (dubious) claim that they’re drug-runners.

              So, fuck-you very much, Obama.

              • Lol the American revolution was about taxes. If it was about not having an all powerful king-like figure at the top, that constitution would have came out a little bit different…

                If you’re fighting a war against an org like Al Qaeda, where you have to kill tens of thousands of people, it’s completely ridiculous to go through the courts for each one. It might be ideal, but it’s not possible

                • That is an oversimplification of the causes of the Revolution. Anyway, I thought you seemed to be seeking to understand why people were upset about the extra-judicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, but it appears that I was incorrect. In short, it’s about trashing legal doctrines that slowly developed over nearly a thousand years in order to protect individual rights, and tearing down “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” that’s supposedly a bedrock principle of justice.

  • BooBees ( BooBees@fedinsfw.app ) 
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    2 days ago

    That’s like an ongoing single morning for this admin, plus whatever crimes they cook up the rest of the day. Yes, Obama sucked. What’s your point, to say this admin shouldn’t be our focus, or to admonish those erroneously looking back with rose colored glasses and experiencing nostalgia? Because I don’t blame anyone practicing escapism from the hellhole that has been 2026.

    • grte ( grte@lemmy.ca ) 
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      2 days ago

      I think the point is the Democratic party should not take their recent victory and go back to Obama era Democratic politics. They have the opportunity be be better than the party in the meme and they ought to take it.

      • BooBees ( BooBees@fedinsfw.app ) 
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        ·
        2 days ago

        Then say that. This meme doesn’t lead me to that thought. A good joke or meme doesn’t need further explanation or dialogue to get you there. This was poorly written using very old low hanging fruit. Just criticize the current leadership, they have TONS you can bring up without trying to tie in obama from two decades ago.