Slow day?

We are getting lots of such posts here on DU: Criticize the US and the West and to hell with evidence and consistency.

I really don't care... done here

This Opening Post is outdated. Don't get me wrong. It's a good OP; but it tends to push current, valid criticisms of Trump and articles, which present Hillary in a positive way, down the page before they receive promotion to the Greatest Page.

posts alternative media reports and analysis.

If you think the situation in Ukraine is a simple good-guy/bad-guy situation, with Uncle Sam wearing the white hat, you are guilty of the same sort of simplistic delusional thinking you have attributed to Judy, only in your case it would be "regressive right" , which of course is a redundant phrase.

Most of the time a simple argument suffices except for those who need to believe.

I look at counterpaunch and think, "Question authority," something most who like CP would agree with. However, I think starting with questioning CP to be good thing, since it's so eminently questionable. For many, that's unquestinably bad thing.

Just because somebody posts a lot, that doesn't make it right. Trump is sure as hell tweeting a lot...

Oh pleeeeease. I decry the usage of a black&white point-of-view and you accuse me of seeing the world in black&white?

And if you want to know my opinion on Ukraine:
- I think that Ukraine was bound to enter such a political crisis eventually because the Country was already and always geographically split into a Europe-oriented, Russia-hating western part and a Russia-oriented, Russia-loving eastern part.
- Putin operates under the delusion that the Soviet Union still exists. His foreign policy is geared towards surrounding Russia geographically with vassal-states to prevent Russia from bordering onto a potentially hostile country. (E.g. the Donbass would like to become part of Russia, but Putin said no because then Russia would border on a hostile Ukraine.)
- Putin thinks that Russia still deserves the geopolitical power it had during the days of the Soviet Union and is irritated that the rest of the world doesn't show proper deference. He thinks that the "West's" respectlessness and carelessness are calculated attacks on Russia's plans to build a sphere of dominance.

I think the arguments can be made without labeling anyone who questions authority as summarily misguided.

How many putsches do you intend to have here? Until DU no longer asks questions of the dominant paradigm?

You have the right to ask whether someone else's POV is based on facts and whether opinion can be supported by them. Last time I looked so do all the rest of us. Except as stated in the TOS there remains quite a range of issues which may be argued and discussed. As far as I know this morning CP is not yet a propaganda organ of the Russian Government.

It has been obvious for some time now that the situation in Ukraine is only slightly less complicated than that in Syria, and that a number of players have been steering public perception and debate about who did what to whom and who is behind each move or atrocity. Putin certainly wants an empire with buffers. The neo-cons in our government, both Republican and Democrat, want a holy war on the retrograde Russian surrogates, and one might add nearly anyone else they seem to feel like bombing.

There are plenty of reasons to ask who is behind the scenes manipulating information. I wonder just how many paid shills are dumping the neo-con POV here? When I see such urgently emphatic labeling I start to feel like I may know. That doesn't make me right, or necessarily accurate. It could also be collateral damage from one more disinformation campaign distorting the free exchange of ideas and opinion, could it not?

I don't care if it's a left-wing or a right-wing agenda. Counterpunch, various left-leaning blogs that get cited here on DU and various DU-members continue to post stuff that in no way stands up to scrutiny. They resort to a simplistic world-view of good-vs-evil and willfully ignore anything that might get in the way of their agenda.

Just a few days ago I was told here on DU that
- China's economic problems (which 90+% of the world's economists are aware of, including the chinese government)
- Amnesty International's report on torture by the syrian government
are so delusional and wrong that I am not even worthy a rebuttal.

How is one supposed to deal with left-wing extremists who are so far down the rabbit-hole that they operate in their own fantasy-world where they are the only ones who know the truth?

And if I see incomplete and misleading information on DU, do I not have the duty to call them out???

I mean if you feel compelled to answer an outright falsehood as opposed to a merely objectionable opinion who am I to tell you no?

However when you join in name calling the left as a whole I feel moved to disagree beyond mere rebuttal to recall the TOS on this very point.

Name calling is inappropriate and I find often somewhat inaccurate. In one fell swoop you associate the entire left as engaged in practices I feel certain most would deny as extreme. If you have something specific to say why not use that accuracy to make your point? Why invite argument off focus and go for the easy smear?

At this point in an already very long year when mud has been slung enough to dredge another Erie Canal I for one am tired of the smearing of the left in general.

I don't question your desire for the truth nor doubt your intention to make things clearly understood.

I would however respectfully prefer you did it with a more precise if somewhat smaller brush.

Just because somebody is left (as in socialist-leaning and opposed to right and bourgeois and capitalist-leaning) that does not automatically make them a good person.

The term "regressive left" is a ridicule (and play at the opposite of "progressive&quot aimed at those members of the left who dabble in the same kind of outlandish, hateful and ignorant conspiracy-theories as certain parts of the right-wing.

You brought the same tactics the OP criticized into your response. Those, and an army of straw men.

oh, Venezuela or Syria and watch both feet jerk up violently. Works the same with mention of the Democratic Party--when we're not under election-rule rules, of course.

There are lots of studies of extremist personality traits, both left wing and right wing, which are key to understanding where they're coming from.

A few that are very quick to accuse others of being paid trolls and putinistas come to mind.

And even you note that " Putin certainly wants an empire with buffers".

The part of the left that the OP was criticizing cannot bring themselves to admit that.

"The part of the left that the OP was criticizing cannot bring themselves to admit that" is just fine. They are out there.

However, remarks that state "The Regressive Left" out of context as a stand alone headline are more inclusive than is appropriate in my view and obscure the intended distinction, seeming to imply the Left is regressive as a whole. "Left Wing Regressives" might be closer to the mark, but maybe I'm only splitting hairs.

I'm too effing tired of all the BS labeling from the primary season to put up with more now, however unintended. I accept that there are those on the left who seem unwilling to look honestly at the complexities of the situation in the Ukraine, and by the way so are many more on the right. I find the labeling of such a POV as regressive a bit offensive however misguided it may be, especially when applied to fellow Democrats here at DU.

It was fine to toss around "neoliberal" and "corporatist" before today, but one "Regressive Left" and suddenly labels are bad?



You're tired of labels? Welcome to the party, however many months late you may be.

Deal with it dude: Ford_Prefect, Member since: Mon Feb 2, 2009, 01:42 PM.

That's all that tossing your join date around tells me. Better luck next time?

At times it was 3 and 4 a day.

The current TOS makes very clear what I've referred to. If you have problems with reading it let me recommend you speak to Skinner about interpreting it for you.

You are the one complaining about criticism of the "Regressive Left" I'm here to support the OP, which is not a "problem" for me at all.

I'm not impressed with how much longer you knew about a website than I did. Maybe there are other DU groups where you can throw your join date around and intimidate some newcomers, but not here. I actually find the attempt to be genuinely laughable.

The TOS are not some kind of get-out-of-consequences-free card. We're as free to critique the far left as they've been with criticizing everyone else. We just have the added bonus of facts to back up our case, unlike them.

I did not complain of the observation in the OP, merely the inaccuracy of the terms used.

If you feel the need to bash the Democratic Left here, please do tuck in. I'm sure you'll be right at home.

I listed my start date to emphasize what I have seen, over and over and over. As with other atrocities there are witnesses. You seem to have no idea how ugly it got here over the last year, or in the time prior to the primary season (unless you are returning under a new identity, which would explain much).

I had to deal with that in the jury system, which does not make me a saint, just tired of the extra added attitude.

Those of us who were the "Regressive Left's" targets in the months prior have been tired of it much longer than you. Pardon me for not sympathizing with the idea that the fringe should be able to attack our party with impunity but then be immune from return criticism, as you seem to be asserting.

Here's what it looks like:
Leftists: "bash Democrats, bash Democrats, bash Democrats, bash Democrats, bash Democrats"
Democrats: "slight criticism of Leftists"
Leftists: "Waaah!"

Pity party, your table is ready.

And I'm not bashing any "Democratic Left," because such people deliberately and consciously choose to disassociate themselves from the Democratic Party as an example of how much more "pure" they are than anyone else. There's a reason the TOS have language about third party support and other means of undermining Democrats that many on the fringe seem to rely upon. How have you been here this long and still somehow think it's "LeftistUnderground" instead of "DemocraticUnderground?"

Pardon me but you seem to be digging up old news from the primary, which as I recall is not to be spoken of or re-argued. But then I understand so little of the TOS I could be mistaken there too.

Good luck getting someone to alert on me for you.

Shall I send flowers?

Propaganda, disinformation and paid shills, what has happened to social media? Forgive the snark, it is not directed toward any innocent or sincere yet misguided souls.

a valued member of our dwindling community. You want to discuss an issue, go right ahead, but cut out the juvenile name calling.

The "valued member" routinely labels those who don't support the Cuban, Venezuelan, and Bolivian governments as ignorant right-wingers.

Just sayin'.

when DU self-identified as "left-wing."

Anymore...

When I got here, I was quite moderate.

Now I'm a regressive leftist, and I haven't actually changed my positions at all.

it's now a popular meme. And then we have some who insist we are much the same as the alt-right.
Sad indeed, DU is a mere shadow of its former self.

If it weren't that I want to stay somehow connected to long-time posters that I like and respect, I'd give it up. As it is, I don't do much here anymore.

it's an old tradition.. we went through 9/11 and the Bush wars together, just for starters. There is real history in the archives here!
Maybe I'm a creature of habit, but I'm not really inclined to get involved in another web forum. it's just not very cutting edge here these days...lol, A lot of great minds have moved on, some even passed from this earth.
Some very positive memories though.

An early DUer who has been gone for many years now had an interesting screen name: "NothingShocksMeAnymore."

I loved the name, liked the person, but that's not true for me. I'm shocked every time I blink these days.

We have leaned Forward! We love drones and privatization and Union busting and Corporations!

those things are certainly popular with many here, anyway.

automatically assuming the West is the bad guy, especially when the implication is that Putin's fascist Russia is somehow a good alternative. I mean, that's nuts, in my view.

that the left automatically assumes the West to be the bad guy; I think that is simplistic propaganda.

As a member of the left, I also don't think the West is "the good guy," which is also simplistic propaganda.

I don't look at the world through that lens at all. Places and governments aren't good or bad "guys." People have good ideas and bad ideas, good systems and bad systems, and good characteristics and bad characteristics, and everything in the middle.

I think we have problems. And by "we," I mean our country and the rest of the world.

I could list them; they are all so connected that they feed each other. Here is one that I think is key: over-population.

But there are elements that do, and have done for some time. Elements of the far left have long had a romance with totalitarian rulers claiming to represent "anti-imperialist" or "socialist" rulers.

Even now, there are plenty who say Fidel Castro is a hero, despite his record of oppression.

That is not to say I do not believe the West, particularly the USA, has been a bad actor.

No offense to anyone, but Putinists remind me of the people who liked Gaddafi, Chavez, or Kim Jong Il / Un. They live in an alternate reality of denying anything that doesn't fit their highly constrained narrative as propaganda. Putinists transcend any political party - there are Republican Putinists, Democratic Putinists, Libertarian Putinists (especially), etc. It's truly bizarre how so many Progressives could pledge support for a homophobic, Fascist mafia don who makes his own journalists disappear.

Usually, at this point, the non sequitur is trotted out that if you don't believe Putin's bs, you obviously support Fascists in Ukraine and want nuclear war.

He was a bloodthirsty tyrant and promoter of terrorism, but he turned Libya into a socialist country, which makes him a good guy. I shit you not. There was an OP with hundreds of posts extolling the virtues of Gaddafi here on DU.

The progressive adoration for Gaddafi during the primary was disgusting, and not just because it was a desperate tactic. To gloss over that dictator's crimes, just to make a political opponent look bad? Nothing "progressive" about that in the slightest.

"Republican Putinists, Democratic Putinists, Libertarian Putinists (especially), etc. It's truly bizarre how so many Progressives could pledge support for a homophobic, Fascist mafia don who makes his own journalists disappear."

"Libertarian Putinists (especially)" - this is the one that is truly bizarre

He is nothing but a fucking Chekist in the office of President. When someone says that the collapse of the USSR was the greatest disaster in history, you know you're dealing with a seriously warped individual.

Government and big biz are always good, never in the wrong. A smart person does not trust either group. They both always try to divide and conquer and so close to key political votes.

Been here long enough to see both groups come and go.

It's not that the US, and the west generally, doesn't have plenty to be criticized about. But the vastly different standards to which some of us hold the west and the rest of the world is simply absurd.

It's almost as if people want to score easy brownie points by criticizing their own team. Like it somehow makes you more knowledgeable or fair.

Since the end of World War 2, which government is responsible for more human rights violations outside its own country's borders? It's an easy thing to quantify, by simply looking at the historical record. We already know the answer, and as US citizens, we have a moral obligation to address the conduct of our government.

have engaged in human rights violations and how many times has the US attempted to intervene in those situations?

Even in the cases where I think all DUers agree that the US was ultimately wrong to act, in the vast majority of cases those countries and their leaders were brutal. Who else was interested in doing something about it?

Is the group to whom the OP and various of the rest of us is referring fair in those cases or are they always looking for reasons to blame the US and the west with some of those reasons sounding more and more ridiculous as time goes on?

Are you familiar with the term negative nationalism as coined by Orwell? If not, I think you should give it a read. The counterpunch portion of the left seems dripping with negative nationalism with the US as their chosen antagonist. http://orwell.ru/library/essays/nationalism/english/e_nat

We can't even consider doing something about groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda and Boko Haram without this group trotting out the same tired memes.

It goes further than the US or the West. The same silly behavior is in evidence against the Democratic party and Democratic leaders like Obama and the Clintons.

rights abuses. It should be a very long list, at least by inference from your question, so I'll settle for a partial list.

The list where the US went in for humanitarian rights because no one else wanted to is 0 countries long. Everywhere we intervened we always had help from multiple countries.

murder people in three countries in Indochina for humanitarian reasons?

When you are not a negative nationalist, you see things pretty clearly.

1. Saudi Arabia was behind us all the way.

2. What's the situation in Libya now? Crime Lords have taken over by making a living building a small drug empire while ISIS beats on the other end.

3. The Yizidis wouldn't have been I'm the situation they were in if we didn't destabilize Iraq in the first place.

Fail, fail and fail.

When you find one where it was only the US and the outcome was leaving the country in a better condition that what we found it.

1. Doesnt change the facts.

2. Is irrelevant to the question and answer.

3. That doesnt change the facts.

Your response is a total fail.

Since the end of World War 2 how many other countries
have engaged in human rights violations and how many times has the US attempted to intervene in those situations?

Even in the cases where I think all DUers agree that the US was ultimately wrong to act, in the vast majority of cases those countries and their leaders were brutal. Who else was interested in doing something about it?

seen as the good guys ever is that you are totally proving my point and that of the OP.

And no, I did not set the parameters of the discussion, Warren Stupidity did with his "I'll bite" comment. He asked and I answered and your comments were irrelevant to those parameters.

They were right on track for a negative nationalist who views the US as their antagonist. As Orwell makes plain, a negative nationalist can never accept that their antagonist is seen as doing something good and positive.

Orwell was referring to norms, mores and nationalism, but he wasn't talking about patriotism. I've yet to meet any true liberal who is not patriotic and wants a better country, but they can still constructively criticise their government and elected leaders.

Second, you set the parameters when you asked when no one else would want to interfere, and out of your list the US had a partner, or many partners when they intervened.

was, in typical left bashing strawman fashion.

Our history of interventions since ww2 is a mixed bag. You however added the criteria that filtered those interventions to the ones where we acted unilaterally, and those have almost all been hideous misguided disasters.

You can wriggle and squirm and deflect but you screwed this pooch all by yourself.

In the first gulf war we intervened by UN Resolution because of a war crime by Iraq, the war crime of an unprovoked war of aggression. Here is one of many UN Resolutions discussing this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_678

The intervention in Libya was at the behest of the United Nations because Khaddafy was using his air forces against his own civilians http://www.un.org/press/en/2011/sc10200.doc.htm

In August 2014, the US Intervened in Northern Iraq to protect the Yazidis against ISIS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/exodus-from-the-mountain-yazidis-flood-into-iraq-following-us-airstrikes/2014/08/10/f8349f2a-04da-4d60-98ef-85fe66c82002_story.html?tid=a_inl

that this was a direct consequence of our massive blunder into Iraq.

Here are some of our unilateral interventions:

Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia - over 1,000,000 vietnamese dead from that "humanitarian intervention".
Iraq - we will probably never know, but at least 100,000 dead from that, and the chaos that followed keeps upping the total.
Chile - we helped engineer the coup against the democratically elected government, tens of thousands died.
Guatemala 1954 - another "humanitarian intervention" that put in power a truly hideous military junta.
Indonesia - 1965 CIA sponsored coup that overthrew the Suharto regime and resulted in a massive slaughter - an estimated 1,000,000 people were killed in the early years of the Sukarno regime.
Nicaragua - unhappy with the leftist government, we intervened and tens of thousands died in the "contra" civil war.

An intervention vs an ongoing war crime certainly fits my parameters, as does one the UN says is to protect citizens from a government that is targeting them.

As far as Vietnam goes, you also realize the North Vietnamese were killing villagers they thought were too buddy buddy with the US right? Our intervention was wrongheaded, but it also is true that once again, the people in power we were fighting against were war criminals and evil people.

when nobody else would. It was your condition. You nailed yourself with that one.

What a ridiculous characterization.

It was a massive crime against humanity, that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, one of the worst refugee crises in history, and stoked sectarian violence throughout the ME, bringing chaos to tens of millions.

This denialism is absolutely astonishing at times.

invasion and collateral damage.

For the record, I don't think the US tends to undertake 'righteous causes' in military actions, not should it. We aren't a nation state superhero-- but neither are we a nation state supervillain.

The US engages, with a few exceptions like Kosovo, in actions to secure it's economic interests. That's what every nation does, to the greatest extent that it can manage.

So we're left with intentions. I do think the US, and the west generally, does *try* to avoid civilian death as much as it can. The same is true of all nations, and certainly not of groups like ISIS.

We bombed Laos daily for seven years, but the resulting mass death, catastrophic refugee crisis and poisoning of the country with the chemicals of war is insignificant, because our intentions were noble.

I can't help but find this rationalization truly bizarre.

This place has certainly drifted from the great place it use to be.

again.

know what their views on issues are. Most of us take them with a grain of salt and combine it with information we have obtained from other sources to reach our own conclusions.

The certainly are some "everything is the West's fault" posters, just as there are some "everything is Russia's fault" or "Mexico's fault" or "China's fault" posters. Each group is fairly consistent. The "everything is the West's fault" types give conservative bloggers and commentators something to point to and say "See how liberals think." Of course, we do the same thing in reverse with far-right posters.

Don't get too stressed out about it. It is one of the nice things about DU. When you think you are as far left as anyone you know in the 'real' world, you come to DU to find there are many further along the scale. Indeed, far-left in the DU world often looks like "Vlad's world" and bears a close similarity at times to how the far-right (largely pro-Vlad now too) looks at the world.

this got more responses than mine ever did...

Now let's debate why and if the sky is blue

I have seen a few of your threads. They always seem to involve the conflict. Do you have family in one country or another?

Various DUers have interests in different aspects of politics and foreign policy and domestic policy. All of that is well within bounds for what the site is about.

Most of the posts and threads here naturally focus on American politics. Detlef seems to like to post about Ukraine and Russia. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I was just curious if he had any personal involvement.

"Russia is innocent." - Never mind that Russia's military is active in eastern Ukraine, in Crimea and in Georgia, and that russian warships are bullying civilian ships in the Baltic Sea, and that russian journalists have confirmed the existence of russian internet-trolls, and that russian internet-trolls have given interviews how they shape opinions online, and that the reporting of Kremlin-sponsored "news-channel" Russia Today has all psychological/stylistic hallmarks of propaganda. (Find one story about the US on RT that makes the US look good. I dare you. Find one story about Russia on RT that makes Russia look bad.)

"Ukraine is run by Neonazis." - Never mind that they are just one of several factions supporting the ukrainian government.

"The West orchestrated the putsch because they want to hurt Russia." - Never mind that Ukraine is breaking apart along political and geographical fault-lines that have existed for decades.




It's the lying. The constant lying. The dismissal of facts just because one doesn't like the facts. It's the blind and reflexive hatred, the political extremism, the willfull ignorance. It's the constant propaganda, the "both-sides-do-it".

Just to be clear about this: One country has invaded another country and is now waging a propaganda-war to portray itself as the real victim here.

And what really pisses me off are those juvenile wannabe-heroes on the extreme left who think that the world is black&white. They imagine themselves being lone warriors against darkness and (oh, what a surprise) everywhere they look the see evil that makes their heroism necessary.
The US did something bad? Well, that can only mean that the opponents of the US are the good guys.
They want to be a somebody, they want to be important and for that they need a noble cause to stand up for. Any cause will do. Whether it makes sense, or whatever the facts say, that doesn't matter. They NEED this political fight and their made-up tragic role as an outcast underdog hero for their own self-worth.

...POC, and supporters of transgender people.

Otherwise I completely agree with OP.