Comments by "Xyz Same" (@xyzsame4081) on "The Humanist Report"
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Transcipt 1 of 3 - please upvote
Individuals with social media accounts have probably realized that conservatives lately have been more insufferable than usual because they've been doing a victory lap over the course of the last week in celebration of Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed to the Supreme Court
Now part of this is them just being excited that his confirmation triggers the libs because that's really a driving motivator for a lot of people who support right-wing policy and Donald Trump and individuals like Brett Kavanaugh.
But another reason they support bbkk isn't necessarily because they just love his judicial philosophy or think he has the right temperament to be on the Supreme Court. It's because they're gonna get something that the right has been wanting for a very very long time: an overturning of Roe versus Wade.
Just sit back and think for a minute in the event Brett Kavanaugh was that vote that struck down Roe versus Wade. Could you imagine how quickly states would act ? I think within the first year there'd be at least a dozen states that outright ban abortion.
They're doing what they can to restrict access to safe and legal abortions and in the event they finally get what they want, I think we're gonna see the policy repercussions of that almost immediately.
Now, part of the celebration isn't just from your conservative racist uncles, it's from actual law makers like Steve King who tweeted out a picture of an adorable baby with the caption: Soon babies like this little angel will be protected in the womb by law.
1:34 Now, what assumptions do you think are embedded in that tweet:
1) obviously is that abortion is tantamount to baby killing and 2) that Conservatives care about babies like that. Liberals we're all cold-hearted we don't give a shit about babies we're all for baby killing we're Pro baby killing.
That's essentially what he wants you to believe: That's the moral argument that he's making and he's using that picture to prime you to think about abortion in a less nuanced way, to get you to believe that any woman who does have abortion in fact committed an atrocity that is akin to murder.
That's exactly what he wants you to think and it's not just lawmakers like Steve King - propagandists on Fox News like Ben Shapiro also utilized this same tactic: They tried to get you to believe that abortion is murder by showing you images of fetuses in the womb and showing you that really - you know - abortion isn't so different than actually killing a baby. Literally.
Part of this is them just trying to prepare the masses for what may be an overturning of Roe versus Wade. So in order to avert some hysteria nationwide they're trying to get you to think. Well if Roe versus Wade is overturned it's really not that big of a deal.
So we're gonna talk about their argument. People like Steve King - but first Iwant to show you a clip of Ben Shapiro and what you're gonna see here is just pure Republican party propaganda:
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"The pro-abortion movement suggests that pro lifers are extreme. In reality the extreme position on abortion is held by the Democratic party. Their platform calls for legal abortion all the way until point of birth.
But pro-abortion extremists get away with their rhetoric because they use euphemistic language to describe what exactly abortion is.
In fact the word abortion is itself a euphemism. The procedure of abortion isn't an anodyne [parts ?] removal
[He means most likely: removing the parts of a fetus without it feeling pain. I did not know the word, here a definition from Wikipedia: An anodyne is a drug used to lessen pain through reducing the sensitivity of the brain or nervous system. …. In literary usage, the word has escaped its strictly medical meaning to convey anything "soothing or relaxing" (since the 18th century) or even anything "non-contentious", "blandly agreeable", or unlikely to cause offence or debate].
It involves doing terminal violence to an unborn child. Ignoring that fact allows abortion advocates to avoid looking reality directly in the face.
So for just a few moments let's look reality in the face: This is a picture of a nineteen week old baby. This is a human child, this is not a ball of goo, this is not a cluster of cells.
In January 44 Democrats in the United States Senate voted not to protect the rights of babies older than this unborn child. Only 3 Democrats: Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, and Bob Casey voted to protect children at 20 weeks. Only two Republicans voted against such protection: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.
Take a good look at that baby, that is a human being with zero rights according to the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
And human life doesn't begin at 20 weeks. This is a picture of a baby at 12 weeks barely three months. You can see this baby with his hands near his chest, this is not a cluster of cells, this is not a ball of goo. His genitalia have already been formed. His liver and spleen produce red blood cells. This is an unborn human being.
Not a single federally elected Democrat would vote for an abortion ban that would protect this baby's life.
And life doesn't begin at 14 weeks. This is a picture of an unborn human being at eight weeks: you can identify the head of this unborn human you can see where the small buds are forming for arms and legs.
But guess what life doesn't begin at eight weeks either: it begins at fertilization when a new human life is formed, a new human being with its own DNA. This human being is not its mother it is not its father, it is not a polyp.
If we found a human embryo on another planet the headlines would rightly scream: Human life found on Mars". Human life is a continuous process of growth from the moment of fertilization onward. Abortion is the killing of this human life. The later the abortion takes place the more brutal the procedure. But no matter the brutality of the procedure, it is obvious that abortion is not some mere optional surgery to be performed for convenience.
And it's even more obvious that those who want to protect the lives of the unborn aren't trying to control women's bodies. Those who cherish abortion are trying to control and dismember the bodies of the unborn. Think about that next time you see a radical feminist and a Handmaid's Tale outfit suggesting that you'd better respect her right to carve apart an unborn baby in the womb or you're some sort of fascist.
5:56 When it comes to propaganda that has to be very effective, right ? Because he doesn't have the facts on his side when it comes to abortion.So what he tries to do is get you to suspend reason and logic and think more about your feelings. He's showing you the picture of the 12 week old baby and he's saying: Look this is this is a baby. Is that really different than an actual born child, look at the similarities here.
This is purely propaganda and we're gonna get through that. But first of all he just makes up things about what the Left believes and Ben Shapiro strawmans the arguments of the Left almost all the time.
He just outright made up something in order to demonize the Left and the Democratic party:
He says quote: "The Democratic Party's platform calls for legal abortion all the way until the point of birth."
That's factually incorrect because when you look at the Democratic Party's platform it says absolutely nothing about abortion all the way up until the last trimester of a woman's pregnancy. In fact they don't even specify when they believe it's still morally acceptable for a woman to have an abortion.
They don't say 12 weeks, they don't see 24 weeks, and they certainly don't endorse the idea that a woman should be able to get an abortion the day before she is due to give birth. Of course they don't say that Ben Shapiro made that up.
7:19 If Ben Shapiro heard me make that argument he'd probably say: "Well, what about the abortions - or the the Democrats rather - that support late term abortions ? "
Well, first of all if a Democrat or any Liberal or Progressive has indicated support for late term abortions, begrudgingly so, it was probably because the life of the mother was at stake. If it comes down to a doctor telling a mother it's you or the baby, you have to pick …that Democrat is doing what a reasonable person would do in saying: "I think that obviously the mother should be allowed to make that difficult choice that I couldn't imagine I would make if I were in that situation."
So we're simply saying that we want to empower women to make that choice and not say: Well, if it comes down to the woman or the baby the baby's got to survive and the moms got to die."
How can you say that it's reasonable for the government to impose that decision on someone. It's such a difficult decision ! How can you say that !
Now, I'm not saying that Ben Shapiro is actually making this argument, but certainly he would rebut my claim about that being untrue by saying that politicians like Barack Obama support late term abortions.
Of course that's just an intellectually disingenuous point to make because as usual we're saying that the mother should be empowered to make that really really difficult decision.
Nobody's pro-abortion. Some people might even surprisingly be against abortion personally, but still support someone else's right to have an abortion because they actually do put facts over feelings - unlike ben shapiro. We're get to that.
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Wilkerson: "...If I call President Obama for anything, it was his timidity, and his lack of courage. His lack of courage with respect to politics, and his lack of courage with respect to particularly his last three years in office. Where I know from talking with him personally, talking with him in the Roosevelt Room, that he understood.
He said [to me] there was a bias in this town towards war, with his Secretary of State sitting beside him. He said quote : "There's a bias in this town towards war" unquote. Well, he went on for another 20 minutes to elaborate on that.
Well, Mr. President if you knew that - why didn't you start doing something about it ? I mean, he could have done a lot more, if he'd had the political courage to do it .....
I think it's because, first you get trapped in that environment, and you want to make lots of money, and you wanna be very happy, and you wanna be very satisfied when you leave that office, especially if you're as young as he is. And you realize that if you start these fights, if you start these battles, not only might you be assassinated, you're probably going to leave without anything like the dignity, and the honor, and the emoluments, and the fortune that he left with.
And I don't say that lightly, that's a very difficult decision to make, when you stand up for principle, when you stand up for the country, when you are a true patriot, you usually are punished, not rewarded."
the complete transcript of that comment (only) is under the video (on the youtube channel of The Real News) - usually they have a complete transcript and the youtube video embedded on their website - but in this case there is not transcript on their site.
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+ longwarn you were not "wrong" as you went by the record and information you had at that time. Gabbard likely would still have been a much better president than Cheney, Obama, HRC or Biden. - That said: this was a mask off moment, I am done with her - and a reminder for voters NOT to get EMOTIONALLY INVESTED into candidates. ALL support is conditional. To judge people on their ACTIONS now and also not on their words or even record earlier.
Concessions have to made for pressure and having to play the insider game - but that goes only that far. And she was not caught between a rock and a hard place and "forced" to agree to a shady compromise she did that out of her own initiative. pandering to donors, or future employers or she thinks it pleases certain audiences. Or she genuinely thinks that way - drone strikes have always killed many more civilians than the group they claim to target.
Kyrsten Sinema was very much agains the Iraq war that may have been a principled stance (would she have been against if Bill Clinton or Al Gore would have started that ? Where was she when Obama foolishly attacked Libya).
She talked a good game (anti war, higher minimum wage, environment), spoke at Green party events, maybe even run on their ticket .....
The voters of Arizona can be excused for being fooled. She won a primary against a progressive in 2018, there was already some talk about being bipartisan. One could hope though she would be a middle of the road Democrat, not too bad.
Turns out she is one of the most openly cynical grifters.
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"...this is how I roll..." - this is how she is bankrolled. - German per capita health care expenditures 5,600 USD (source World Bank 2014) add 65 % and you will land at the U.S. level of 9,200 (meanwhile it is well over 10,000 USD in 2016 - I do not have the German numbers for 2016 - but the average for the other wealthy European countries and Canada was 5,000 - 5,500 in 2014. Some do it for as little as 4,2 k, the completely underfunded UK with 3,9k - Australia 6k. Oh, and in most European countries - and definitely In Germany (82 million people) the population is on average older than the U.S. - the U.S. should beat them cost-wise on demographics alone.
So generally speaking: for a substantially !! lower cost all Americans could be covered - so the high federal debt would be an argument PRO single payer or anything in that direction.
But some special interests (that no doubt fund her) stand to lose a lot of money, while the citizens would win big time. and the economy with them, more disposable income, more security, less stress.
The cost efficient systems are widely non-profit (the doctors are often private for profit and with a contract with the non-profit single payer insurance, the hospitals are mostly non-profits, and the insurance agencies negotiate with the pharma industry as well. So a lot of that niche is covered by non-profit players or the profits are somewhat restricted. Germany has 82 million people, the public non-profit insurance agencies (in reality there are more than one, but they cooperate) are powerfuly negotiating partners. And they do not have to make a profit. They must cover the costs of the staff, their IT, rent, etc. pay the bills of doctors, hospitals, make the contracts, .... fulfill their role so they system functions and stay within their budgets. And if that is not possible - demographic ghange, more old people, they have to ask for higher funding and give a good reason for it.
They have NO incentive to DENY care, no profit to be made (surplus is kept for the next year). And there is no bureaucraZy necessary to deny care - which is lot of work as the U.S. proves.
As everyone gets the same treatments the adminstration can be very streamlined and simple. Cost efficient !
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So Jill Stein sat on a table in one of the important countries of the world and their president sat at the table, too ? So what ? If she was president or the CEO of a major company she would meet him (and other head of states as well). A Siemens CEO (the railyway branch) got harshly criticized when doing a business trip that was planned well in advance. Why ? The US had just "convinced" the EU to join them in the sanctions against Russia (because of Crimea).
Publicly funded German TV is supposed to be neutral - they are not, they have unsavoury connections to the Atlantic Bridge and other pro US, pro NATO, pro neoliberalism US think tanks.
So the interviewer (an "Atlantiker") asked him rather agressively why he had made that journey to Russia at all and had on that occasion also met with Vladimir Putin.
The CEO replied: "The trip was planned in ahead, as industry leader if you are given the chance to meet with Putin you do so - and Siemens has been active in Russia for more than 100 years and will continue to do so."
As LONG AS THERE IS DIPLOMACY and talk - there is NOT WAR. Having relationships between leaders that are agreeable (not only polite) is a good thing and can smooth out problems.
We had several close calls regarding nuclear warfare in the Cold War. Some of these dangerous situations were brought on in a cavalier manner (Cuba crisis and again in the 80s). In other cases there were false alarms.
One of these false alarms was in the 80s at a time when tensions were high. The Soviet officier in charge decided that the alarm did not fit the pattern they expected from a nuclear attack from the US. Their system indicated one missile - and then one more - in total five single missiles were indicated within maybe 15 - 30 minutes.
In a real attack very likely a bulk of missiles would have come at once. The system was known to produce false alarms from time to time, so he classified the alarms as such - and waited the 15 minutes. Well nothing happened, it was indeed a false alarm.
Another situation and more dangerous happenend in the Cuban crisis. A Soviet submarine nearby Cuba was detected by the US and the US ship shot a signalling shot. The Soviets were supposed to understand that this was NOT an attack, some sort of internationlly agreed signal (maybe more on the decisive side).
Anyway, the Soviets interpreted it as attack. Did I mention they had nukes ? The Soviet rules said that 3 officiers had to come to a decision: The captain, the next in rank and the leading "political" officier. 2 said let's retaliate against the US ship (I would assume with conventional weapons) 1 said Njet. So it did not happen. Which I guess was a good thing.
According to Robert Kennedy part of the crisis team: Some of the US military leaders at that time thought there was such a thing as a winnable nuclear war and urged JFK to allow a first strike. JFK thought otherwise. Had the US ship been attacked that would have helped the war hawks. His brother Robert sais JFK was grey in the face - no doubt completely overworked and worried out of his sleep. The people who make the ultimate decisions have only human strenght and are subject to stress and psychological misconceptions and peer pressure. It is better to not even come close to such a scenario, than to hope they get it right. One part of the "safety net" are good and polite relationships with major leaders in the world.
BTW: The crews of the US and the Soviet Union ships had a sort of Cuba crisis reunion some years ago in Florida. Another good thing.
Now imagine such a "misunderstanding" or false alarm while both nations are in a GOOD WORKING REALTIONSHIP. While they do business and get along nicely. Unclear or unpleasant events will interpreted and handled differently than in a climate of high tensions.
I assume Jill Stein was honoured with a place on the president's table (or he made just an appearance) because she was a US political figure. The German chancellors Kohl and then Schroeder had a good relationship with the Russian leaders. That could prove extremely valuable in a crisis.
I also saw a clip with Bill Clinton: He said: As president I tried to let the international figures save their face. If we had disagreements we fought them out behind closed doors. He was then asked about his interactions with Putin. Clinton said: "He was very honest." "How honest ?" Clinton: "Brutally honest". Did he keep his promises ?" Clinton paused for a moment, then "Yes, when he promised something he kept his word." That is a valuable information about Putin.
There is no need to like Putin - but having a good working relationship and giving him the feeling that his country and he as representative of that country are respected IS A VERY WISE MOVE.
Would also give some leverage to ask for human rights improvment.
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As for age: For someone who wants to really ROCK THE BOAT being old (provided the person is in good health) is an ADVANTAGE. Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are a good example, they are not shy about calling a spade a spade, and the young people love the old guys for it.
The establishment will not be pleased with a progressive firebrand in power.
What do you do after having been POTUS. Usually they do not return to be in Senate or Congress (would there be a legal obstacle ? Or is is is just considered inappropriate or a decline ?
Would someone like Obama go back to be a community organizer ? Or work for a lawfirm, or start one ? Hardly, there are ethical objections, and it just wouldn't look good. - Being POTUS is one of the most powerful positions in the world - it sort of ends your career, nothing can top that. Obama chose to be very, very nice to Wallstreet, he was rewarded NOW with a 400k speaking gig. He got a very good book contract - and the publishers know they can give him such a high contract, the special interests will make sure the the BOOK is bought. They can order truckloads and gently pressure associated institutions, like think tanks to buy it up as well. Gift for Christmas for management or something, something to be dusted off in the library).
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Jimmy Carter writes the occasional book, too. It helps him finance his charities. He does not hunt after big money. (And I do not think he was influenced by it as President). You can tell that when he makes statements from time to time. He does not shy away from making statements that are seen as controversial.
I think politicians have a constant more or less conscious awareness that they might a) lose their position (losing an election, or the party collegues start an intrigue against you). Or b) they just want to do something else.
That gives the special interests a lot of leverage over politicians in office. It shows even in Europe where elections are PUBLICLY FUNDED. Still Big Biz has way too much influence. Politicians often cannot afford or do not dare to piss off certain people, branches, corporations. Or their own party establishment which is of course worked by the special interests. - They might need them in the future to get a cushy job or in order to have a professional perspecitve.
I do not even condemn that. Even with good and honest work a politician might get into a burnout, find out the job is no longer a good fit for him or her, or lose an election despite good work (to someone backed with more money or better in PR).
And then they stand there empty handed. They were used to have a nice salary. And a politician will always have some Alpha personality features - they need them. So they are not going to do a humble job after that, and they are not going to live off their savings and lose status (from important lawmaker to lazy bum).
Doing charity like Jimmy Carter can be a honorable solution provided you are not greedy and do have some morality.
Of course politics in these days attracts and rewards careerists, especially Congress is a stepping stone to the final goal of a highly lucrative career as "consultant", lobbyist, etc. (Minimum age for Senate is 35, Congress only ? 25 - so if you are "designing" a career - as opposed to being driven by a mission like Sanders - than you will naturally try to find the donors that will purchase you the Congress seat. There you build your rolodex for some years, in your mid to late 30s you can go after the big money. Not the measly 100 or 115k + benefits they pay for a representative.
In the time in which other people build their careers they were in politics. So there is a lot of incentives to use the networks you have from being politician later - and as long as you are in politics to be very aware of the needs and the mood of special interests - to the disadvantage of the general public.
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I remember, it was infuriating. She BEGGING him, so much so, that it looked like HE was her superior and like it was in his power to graciously grant or nicely but firmly deny the "pie in the sky request". - The voters are the bosses - he is getting his salary from the voters to act in their best interest. (It is like you hire an accountant or an lawyer to represent you and then you have to BEG them FERVENTLY so that maybe, maybe they will so oblinging as to not sell you out). That dynamic was very strong to see, exactely because she was so politely but consistently asking him.
I hope his sorry a$$ gets kicked out.
And what is more: I think he was relatively new in office - meaning theoretically there is a chance that he was not already completely corrupted - just trying to navigate the donor chasing w/o falling flat on his face right away.
I guess, he started out as careerist right away. Do some time, usually in Congress, sell out, court donors and party leadership, network. And secure a more lucrative position a few years later. A political office as stepping stone to make a lot of money later.
Unlike a certain Senator with unruly hair who was and is quite content with the salary as mayor, Congressmen and Senator. If you can self-fund your campaign and are happy with your pay and know your constituency rewards your honest effort with coming out for you on election day - then you can indeed vote your conscience.
You can even campaign for exotic concepts that the donors, Big Biz and the party establishment does not like - like Single Payer healthcare.
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