Cuba US: John Kerry reopens Havana embassy on historic trip

[Sonereal]

Well, this one is true, North Korea doesn't bully anyone, except to some extent, South Korea.

It literally sends its own people into camps.

So we can add "morally" to the list of words and phrases you continue to misuse.

Morality is relative, and relatively speaking, my morality system is better.

Speaking of which, back to that nonsensical "talking point" argument again? You do realize that refers to bodies like the Republican Party which uses "talking points" to coach their sycophants what to say? It does not refer in any way to the opinions of individuals who clearly have no such allegiances?

Aren't you just the sycophant?

Like, you're not a Republican (as is abundantly clear) but nothing you say is really unique. Or new. Or special. Really, it just sounds like typical pseudo-enlightened hipster leftist garbage. You have allegiances. Just because you pretend you don't doesn't mean you don't. For example, I pretend that I do not work for the Great NSA Internet Forum Army and do not receive a weekly shill check to shill for the NSA, US government, and the Washington Consensus

I think this is the most disappointing aspect of all of this. I feel like you, the individual, don't even matter to this conversation, because your arguments and the way you argue them are just so common on the internet that I could switch you out with a half dozen euphoriciacks and not even notice the switch.

You are never going to convince the authoritarian conservative warmongers of that. They have to have their make-believe threats to rationalize their xenophobic view of the world. To continue to believe that the US must use the military to inflict their prejudices and "morals" on the rest of the world.

That appeal to the audience though.

The only "bully" left is the US. And they literally gloat about it. This is the reason North Korea developed nuclear weapons. It is also the reason why the majority of young South Koreans now no longer like and respect the US because we are endangering their lives with this nonsensical saber-rattling which ended with Clinton and was restarted by Bush.

North Korea apologia. ☑
"Bush literally Satan narrative" ☑

This is getting boring. You're getting boring. The only thing interesting about any of this conversation is how highly you think of yourself, which isn't that interesting because I clearly think more highly of myself than you think highly of yourself. The only difference is that I don't pretend my gigantic ego is, well, non-existent.

You're stumbling around, desperately reaching for everything in the typical high school liberal's arsenal. You're trying, so very hard I might add, to twist everything to an anti-US thing that it is really, really embarrassing. Something you'd probably see on Reddit, to be honest. In this thread you've used every tool, from "military-industrial complex" to "AUTHORITARIAN CONSERVATIVES!!!!" to apologetics for North Korea and Russia.

And believe me, those are all really funny, and if there were an Internet Olympics, you would probably get gold for mental gymnastics easily. This upsets me, of course, because I feel like my own mental gymnastics deserve the gold more. Actually, nevermind, I'm gold and you're silver if that makes anybody in the audience judging feel better.

But the problem is is that those are funny, you specifically are not. You don't have real views. At least, not views that aren't cookie-cutter to the point of being parody. And deep down, we both know that the average America doesn't actually care. Most Americans don't care that we kill launch drone strikes on people across the world. Most Americans don't care about any supposed moral wrongness of our embargoes and sanctions against regimes against we don't like. If anything, Americans love them. They love sanctioning people we don't like.

They love when we take a strong stance against Russia and expand NATO. They love that we impress upon the world our views and beliefs. They love it, and I love it, and that makes me the mainstream here. And that's what I think, personally, is what bothers the anti-US pseudo-liberal high school left. Their beliefs, like the ultra right wing ones some Republicans have, just aren't accepted in mainstream America sorry.

America is more likely to have a gay president than a president who'll say that drone strikes are morally wrong. That's just life. That's just the way things have been, are now, and forever shall be.

That is why I am able to walk away from this argument so easily now. Because there was no argument between two people. There was just an argument between a person, me, the average American and forum user, and a wall of checklist arguments.

So, before we go, lets go ahead and exhaust the rest.

1. Carter was totes a good president and was held back!
2. Vote Sanders
3. End the NSA
4. Slash military spending
5. Le evil Republicans
6. But mah European leftism
7. I'm sure Scandinavia is a point these days so this is part of the list for now.
8. And American Genocide of the Indians for good measure.

We good now? Good. I'm out.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

We good now? Good. I'm out.

Nice, you are boring too with so many ☑

 

[brennan]

Hello pot, this is kettle...

 

[Sonereal]

Nice, you are boring too with so many ☑

You tried so hard, and came so far, but in the end, you weren't even original.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That seems a mite revisionist. You can only describe the Roman Empire as non-global from a later perspective. As far as the Romans knew they, like Alexander, saw 'no more lands to conquer'. We could say the same about the Mongol Empire. By the same rationale a later civilisation, looking at territory on mars could view the British Empire as 'local'.

Expansionist militarism is Imperialism, regardless of how big the area involved. IMO

I would say that their "no more lands to conquer" was arrogant, but not supporting their empire as 'spanning the world.' Their arrogance was in thinking that the rest of the world was "beneath their notice," rather than being something that they were unaware of.

I think there are a lot of reasons for local military actions that aren't necessarily Imperialistic. Under some circumstances I might even support the "bringing better government to an unstable neighbor to ensure our own safety" justification, which I think was to some extent the idea that drove the Romans. It was only later that "neighbor" changed to "people on the other side of the planet" and "to ensure our own safety" became "so we can have tea without paying for it."

 

[brennan]

Speaking as an Englishman, tea should be an inalienable right.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Morality is relative, and relatively speaking, my morality system is better.

"Relatively speaking" might makes right isn't "moral" whatsoever. it is actually the complete absence of any semblance of rational morals.

So, before we go, lets go ahead and exhaust the rest.

So to you a "talking point" is just another phrase for "personal opinion". So what is so terrible about that?

 

[brennan]

Melian dialogue anyone?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Speaking as an Englishman, tea should be an inalienable right.

Clearly the Angles and Saxons should have moved a different direction back in their nomadic days. Ending up where tea won't grow was obviously really poor planning on their part.

 

[red_elk]

It literally sends its own people into camps.

If you mean labor camps or prisons, pretty much all countries do it to some extent. But it's strange that in discussion about USA and North Korea, you've picked this topic. There are tons of things which are way better in the USA, but their prison system is really not the thing to be proud of. USA (AKA Land of the Free) has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, which is probably comparable, if not higher, than North Korean one.

To stay on topic, Cuba also has pretty high incarceration rate.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

If you mean labor camps or prisons, pretty much all countries do it to some extent. But it's strange that in discussion about USA and North Korea, you've picked this topic. There are tons of things which are way better in the USA, but their prison system is really not the thing to be proud of. USA (AKA Land of the Free) has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, which is probably comparable, if not higher, than North Korean one.

To stay on topic, Cuba also has pretty high incarceration rate.

That "one of" is misplaced. Incarceration rate in the USA is THE highest. We're number one! We're number one!

 

[Formaldehyde]

If you mean labor camps or prisons, pretty much all countries do it to some extent. But it's strange that in discussion about USA and North Korea, you've picked this topic. There are tons of things which are way better in the USA, but their prison system is really not the thing to be proud of. USA (AKA Land of the Free) has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, which is probably comparable, if not higher, than North Korean one.

To stay on topic, Cuba also has pretty high incarceration rate.

It is an inherent sign of an authoritarian regime.

But, ironically, many authoritarian conservatives in the US think it somehow doesn't apply to their own sense of "morals".

 

[Ajidica]

1. Carter was totes a good president and was held back!

Not sure why you take exception to this.
Carter was a good president to the best of his abilities, but was saddled with immense public distrust of government, stagflation*, the collapse of Iran, and attempted to conduct a vaguely moral foreign policy towards our less-than-democratic allies around the world**. Carter always struck me as a person to decent and moral to be president.

*Economic theory at the time really had no idea on how to handle stagflation and even today the situation that caused the stagflation would not be easy to fix.
**Unlike Reagan who vetoed a sanction bill against South Africa, Carter tried to get countries like South Africa and Iran to improve their human rights records and respect for democracy.

 

[Takhisis]

Now, if we could possibly discuss the topic at hand, i.e. what good, bad or otherwise qualifiable developments might come from this and other moderately auspicious first steps in the direction of adult behaviour…

 

[gay_Aleks]

Nah. We'd have an actual discussion, instead of merely mud-slinging, and that's not the OT way.

 

[Sonereal]

Now, if we could possibly discuss the topic at hand, i.e. what good, bad or otherwise qualifiable developments might come from this and other moderately auspicious first steps in the direction of adult behaviour…

Cuba has suffered some issues lately. A portion of the Cuban budget was funded by gifted/low-price barrels of oil given/sold to them be Venezuela. The recent plunge of oil prices and implosion of Venezuela's economy led to Cuba reaching out to the US, which was more or less enough to get a friendly "sure why not".

The benefits would be increase ties between the country. Cuba is a beautiful country and pretty much right off the waters of the US, so there's no reason that Cuba couldn't benefit greatly from tourism. If Cuba and the US can hash out their differences even more, Cuba would benefit from private investment from the States.

The latter is more shaky, but I think the tourism is a solid bet. Cuba receives about three million tourists a year as is, a good chunk of them Canadians. I'm sure that more open ties could see the US match that number in fairly short time.

 

[brennan]

The rapproachement with Cuba mirrors that with Iran. Both are climbdowns from insupportable positions amounting to little more than sustained sulking from a childish superpower. In both cases popular movements deposed unpopular dictators, but at the height of the cold war the land of the free preferred to be cosy with the murderous, fascistic, dissident torturing dictators of the world (so long as their politics were on the right) than support anything that evenly vaguely resembled the left.

What exactly in the last 30 years has been the problem with Cuba or Iran? None that any sane outside observer can detect. The most serious objection that can be raised against either is Iran's support for Hezbollah - who kill a lot less civilians than the 'defence forces' of their opponents, who the US support even when they are reducing a densely populated city to rubble and killing thousands. The wailing about a nuclear programme is a decade out of date (the CIA acknowledge that Iran were only possibly working towards a weapons programme up until the biggest threat to Iran - Saddam Hussein - was removed by the US itself, whereupon Iran abandoned the project.) As for Cuba.. apart from (I think) a poor human rights record (nothing like as bad as certain key US allies' of course) I can't think of any reason at all for the US stance in recent decades.

Honestly, to me, this just looks like a return to sanity.

 

[classical_hero]

If you really think Iran isn't a threat, then you have not read the news in the past 10 years. Cuba isn't much of threat, but the US should have gotten more from them in return for recognition. I mean at the re-opening dissidents weren't allowed to be there, surely that should have sent alarm bells ringing.

 

[brennan]

Whereas of course Saudi Arabia is big on having government opposition groups imprisoned and tortured hanging around when they have guests. Please don't even try to get away with this sort of apologia, the hypocrisy is surreal.

I'd love to hear your views on how exactly Iran is a threat. Just for a chuckle.

 

[Sonereal]

If you really think Iran isn't a threat, then you have not read the news in the past 10 years. Cuba isn't much of threat, but the US should have gotten more from them in return for recognition. I mean at the re-opening dissidents weren't allowed to be there, surely that should have sent alarm bells ringing.

I think the question was really "how much leverage did the US actually have"? The deal pleased the other members of the negotiations, who felt it was enough. Iran is a threat and an opportunity because allowing Iran to reenter the international arena as a solid, stable member will give Iran more tools to expand their influence beyond supporting Hezzie and Hamas. I would think of the deal as a confidence measure as well as a deal to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions without resorting to Gulf War V: Electric Boogaloo.

As for asking more from Cuba in return for recognition, I don't think it is that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I think the US benefits more from all of this than it loses out. Cuba benefits more than it loses. It seems like a win-win to me even if a few dissidents have to watch the ceremony on TV.