The list of people who let Perfect be the enemy of Good grows at the end of every American school year. Republicans LOVE single-issue voters since they’re easy to manipulate. Source: 2024 election.
The list of people who make excuses for crimes against humanity and genocide is the enemy all. Right-wingers love excusing a little mass murder.
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Why I don’t talk to family. I refuse to put up with anyone that supports the right, including neolibs.
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The sanctioning of ‘double-tap’ drone strikes, and, by a fairly recent interpretation of international law, enabling Saudi atrocities in Yemen.
What else does he have?
The first black American president, turning one of the wealthiest nations in Africa, Libya, into a failed state with open slave trade markets is peak irony.
He ordered a drone strike on an American citizen, and bombed schools, weddings, and hospitals (including a doctor’s without borders hospital). He extended the patriot act and persecuted Snowden and manning for telling us that the federal government was regularly sidestepping the bill of rights.
What else do you need?
He ordered a drone strike on an American citizen
“American citizen” is not a protection against designation as an enemy combatant, unless you want to tell a bunch of Nazi volunteers in WW2 that getting shot by the 101st Airborne was actually a war crime against their precious little souls.
and bombed schools, weddings, and hospitals (including a doctor’s without borders hospital).
I suspect you’re thinking of an incident in Afghanistan wherein a US gunship hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital. While abhorrent and arguably a war crime, it was not sanctioned by Obama, and Obama, in fact, was a prominent voice in demanding an investigation of the incident.
The only wedding strike I remember was in Yemen, which was a big issue at the time, and resulted in limitations on the military’s ability to carry out drone strikes without presidential approval.
The only school strike I can find were performed under Bush, though considering that the Bush Administration did not reveal many of its strikes, there may very well be more.
Obama’s drone campaigns were performed with a callous disregard for civilian casualties compared to what they should have been performed with, and US PR worked double-time to try to paint them as civilian casualty-free (claiming something absurd like a 0.2% civilian casualty ratio). That’s not the same as saying that Obama targeted schools, weddings, and hospitals.
He extended the patriot act and persecuted Snowden and manning for telling us that the federal government was regularly sidestepping the bill of rights.
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Those aren’t war crimes. Shitty, sure, arguably against international or Federal law. But that’s not what a fucking war crime is.
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‘persecuted Snowden and manning’ how so? At best, by not pardoning them? Do you know how the executive and judiciary work in this country? I’m sorry Snowden found it more convenient to go and stick Putin’s hand up his ass instead of defending himself in court or fleeing to any fucking legitimate country. I’m more legitimately sorry that Ms. Manning ended up punished for whistleblowing, though I also realize that military prosecutors cannot reasonably say “Oh, well, we think this leak is for a good cause, so we’re not prosecuting.” A pardon by the executive would have been much better than the commutation she eventually received, and a immediate commutation preferable to the much-delayed one. You want to say that’s a terrible sin of Obama’s? I’m not in disagreement. But it’s not a fucking war crime.
If you’re ever wondering how MAGA can still defend trump after all the awful things he’s done, go back and look at the mental gymnastics you do to defend that piece of shit Obama and it’ll start making sense. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
“You’re doing mental gymnastics by pointing out that my claims are literally untrue 😭”
Sorry you didn’t check any of your claims before making them. I understand that games of telephone with online circlejerks are much more entertaining than nasty little things like reality.
Reality: “he did that but here’s why it’s actually fine”
Reality: “he did that but here’s why it’s actually fine”
The first claim is pointless, as I noted. American citizenship is no more a guarantor against military action than any other status, nor should it be.
The next three of your claims were outright incorrect.
The next two claims I explicitly noted were of pretty horrible offenses, but not of war crimes, as was claimed.
Oh champ. I hope your team wins the Superbowl or world series or whatever you call this hell we’re living in
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I mean with Trump now, surely Obama comparatively seems great? Not a saint but isn’t it easy to see why those relatives would miss him?
Yes but part of being a lefty is never being happy. It’s traditional!
Well clearly you’re not a real lefty then pfft
What else would I be, they always said I’m not right.
Obama bombed children, that will never seem great in any way, shape, or form.
If someone worse than Trump comes along, are you happy to say “I miss Trump?”.
Have a line and hold it.
Trump has bombed children. And he has RAPED children.
I mean that’s the reason we have the words: “better” and “worse.”
If something is “better than”, then yes, I believe it is better.
Y’all act like anyone said Obama was a saint. Hell, some saints have been worse than Obama.
It’s why the overton window keeps shifting, because the level of evil you accept keeps looking better in comparison to worse.
Ok what’s your suggestion? To keep going with “worse”? To what end? What if I told you that not everyone wanted Bernie Sanders? What if I told you we live in a world where we need to live with each other and we all have different opinions and values?
Since you can’t get everything YOU want you think you’re morally superior to others around you.
Would you say that James Buchanan and/or Andrew Jackson are better or worse than Obama?
History is full of horrible presidents, kings and leaders. Progress isn’t a straight line.
it’s not about what you or i want; it’s about having basic human decency and standing up against red lines like genocide; ethnic cleansing; and especially bombing innocent people from orbit or separating children from their parents to trying them individually in obama’s case.
pretending that these are little more than wish list item minimizes these nazi level atrocities and reflects your character as a human being.
basic human decency, listen, I agree with you. But this is an assumption that you’re making. There is a percentage of the population (some think up to 4%) that are absolute sociopaths. We also have to live with them. Even if they would be ok living without us.It isn’t about a wish list. People will always be people. Until we somehow cure sociopathy or whatever drives people to be ignorant and cruel (my opinion on conservatives is they are probably borderline sociopaths).
Our options are to work with these people or go to war and exterminate them.
I don’t see how you holding everyone to your standard of morality (even if I wholeheartedly agree with you) is of any use in this. We HAVE to ALL live with each other and do the best we can. Aiming for your absolute unyielding moral compass doesn’t help.
you’re offering a false choice: work with sociopaths or kill them; that’s surrender.
don’t beg killers to be nicer – make their cruelty politically impossible.
you say “we have to live with each other.” fine. but living together doesn’t mean accepting drone strikes on kids because 4% of people are sociopaths. that’s not pragmatism. that’s cowardice with a philosophy degree.
the goal isn’t to pick the lesser evil. it’s to build a world where bombing children isn’t a debate – it’s unthinkable. that’s not moral purity. that’s the whole damn point.
It’s why the overton window keeps shifting, because the level of evil you accept keeps looking better in comparison to worse.
… would you like to outline the past ~70 years of the Overton window shifting to allow more evil instead of less? Or were we voting for saints back in the 50s?
Why does it have to be 70 years? Can we do 10 20 30? Then I don’t believe the overtone window is that obvious 30-40 years ago you were considered bad if you bought a right wing newspaper, people would stop talking to you. (Well at least where I am from)
Coincidentally that is the period where workers had the most rights, which has slowly become worse with time in every western country.
At that time they thought right wing people where against them having rights and quiet evil, they had been thought by their parents, who worked hard for those rights. Our generation has not learned the importance and given more room for the right wing to control our media, which then controls the narrative. Why is there so many articles about trump or Elon musk, I mean we have two idiots who cares, do we have to know that trump misspelled coffee?
Why does it have to be 70 years? Can we do 10 20 30? Then I don’t believe the overtone window is that obvious 30-40 years ago you were considered bad if you bought a right wing newspaper, people would stop talking to you. (Well at least where I am from)
Yeah, sure, let’s do 10, 20, 30.
30 years ago Black folk were being called ‘superpredators’ and blamed for a ‘crime wave’, the push to dismantle the meager welfare state in the USA was wildly popular, immigration law was reformed to militarize the border and deportation, being gay was illegal in about half of US states… do I need to go on?
You are making an argument against your own point of lesser evils, we are debating if the overtone window has shifted. Which is obvious that it has. As I stated before media is owned by the wealthy even state owned media is controlled by the wealthy, they set the narrative, why do you think that they write and talk about super predators, so that becomes the agenda. And not that coperate america is fucking over the working class, and the politicians aren’t doing jack shit about it.
I get your point and I don’t disagree, but surely you get your relatives too?
Nope. I don’t really get that shortsighted mentality of missing the lesser evil.
Evil is evil regardless and it should never be missed just because you weren’t a victim of their evil deeds. That’s how you abandon your solidarity
Nope. I don’t really get that shortsighted mentality of missing the lesser evil.
“I don’t understand why someone might miss when things were less bad!”
Tracks.
Bad is bad. Just because you weren’t personally affected by the bad doesn’t make it less bad, just exposes how little solidarity with the oppressed you actually have.
It does not expose anything of the sort. You are just applying strawmen in your purity test.
no, saying “i miss obama” is the same as those republicans who whinge that they voted for trump three times but NOW trump is bad because it effects them.
they remember Obama fondly because that time was good FOR THEM. and not because obama was a good president. it’s gross because it’s selfish and akin to saying “i wish it was like the 20’s - 50’s, times were better then…” you automatically know the type of person who said that and why
Bad is bad
There’s always degrees to it. I dunno why so many online forget about this
Because there are people who don’t have a shortsighted, reactionary mentality.
The degrees of how bad is entirely contextual. And part of the context of seeing the lesser evil as “better” involves limiting the scope to a false dichotomy.
Being stabbed is better than being shot, but regardless of which option you’re still fucking being injured.
Bad is bad. Less bad is less bad.
Having family members concerned about the level of uncertainty involved in their immigration proceedings was bad, as no one, but especially not people who’ve been in the country and established lives, should be treated as illegal for their region of residence. Having family members fucking deported for it because of changes in Federal immigration enforcement policy is fucking worse.
Inflicting more suffering on the oppressed so you can feel ‘pure’ isn’t solidarity, it’s solipsism.
Miss me with your uneducated, centrist bullshit.
We get it, you weren’t affected personally, so you don’t give a shit about the lives of those that were already being affected. We get it. You have no solidarity.
And FYI, we aren’t the ones inflicting the suffering so nice try shifting that blame.
What happened to the concept of better?
Nothing.
Better is contextual. The lesser is technically better, sure, but it still falls below the minimum standards.
Being stabbed is “better” than being shot but regardless of which, you’re still fucking injured.
But if you understand “better” then shouldn’t that help in understanding how people miss better times?
Sure but it also makes me understand that people lack solidarity if they miss a time when their comfort came at the expense of the oppressed simply because they weren’t the one personally being oppressed.
Just because life was more comfortable before doesn’t mean I miss it, because I have solidarity with those who were oppressed for that comfort to have been possible. I would never want those times to return just because I personally benefit from it, thus I do not miss those times.
I also do not miss those times because I understand that those times are what allowed the ones we are currently living in to manifest. The systems, institutions, and cultural norms of those times are what led to today.
I do not miss those times. I yearn for times where those things did not come at the expense of others while enabling evil to continue to consolidate power and disenfranchise my brothers and sisters of the working class.
Ha ha, and it only gets worse from here. Not just in the US, across the west. Respective of party, every new administration worse than the last. Unless we organize.
Both sides bad. Amirite?
This is primarily an anarchist community. If you want us to call the Democrats good, you’ll be waiting for a long time. The 9th layer of hell and the 7th layer of hell have differences, but it’s still hell.
I wish online leftists hated conservatives half as much as they hate people who are only a little left wing. Like ya, Obama sucks and bombed a school a decade and a half ago but trump bombed one two weeks ago and also wants to do a genocide right now.
Well, Trump is bombing children now so of course the previous president who bombed children is okay.
What an utterly daft statement that is lacking in solidarity. Like, bruh, they both bombed children in the pursuit of Imperialist power. That should fall well below the minimum expectations required for you to willingly be supportive of either candidate. This shortsighted, reactionary mentality is exactly how we ended up with the society we have.
Continuing to settle for the 2nd worst option only ensures that society continues to backslide as the threat of something even worse traps people into ceding power to a “lesser evil” which in turn only enables evil to continue to hold power over the people.
And absolutely laughing at the insinuation that Obama was even remotely left-wing. That is just a politically illiterate statement.
Leftists literally want to kill right-wingers. They only criticise ‘centrists’.
The fact that you think you’re the bigger victim because people try to reach you with words instead of fists or bullets is your own naivety.
Leftists literally want to kill right-wingers. They only criticise ‘centrists’.
That’s curious, because overwhelmingly what is seen in these conversations are self-proclaimed leftists who neither kill nor criticize right-wingers, but find any reason to condemn anyone with any chance of making any change as some form of centrist. See: the reaction to Zohran Mamdani.
Want is not the same as doing, that takes a lot to drive people to radicalise enough to do so.
And why criticise a right winger? They won’t read it or learn from it. What a waste of effort, there’s a least some hope to convert a centrist.
And there is no chance of making any change as centrist under such a ‘democracy’, they are fleeting changes that can be revoked by the next person to get into power. Real, lasting change requires revolution not reform or voting.
Want is not the same as doing, that takes a lot to drive people to radicalise enough to do so.
Okay, so the argument is that they want to do something against right-wingers, but do nothing. But they want to do something against insufficiently left-wing centrists, and do do that.
Can you outline to me how this is any different than a given neolib saying they really want to stop conservatives, but only ever seem to actually try to nitpick and belittle progressives?
And why criticise a right winger? They won’t read it or learn from it. What a waste of effort, there’s a least some hope to convert a centrist.
Because conversations in the public sphere affect how people conceptualize and internalize ideas, apart from the direct conversants. When right-wing ideas are allowed to spread unchallenged, they become more normalized and change the political leanings of the society as a whole.
And there is no chance of making any change as centrist under such a ‘democracy’, they are fleeting changes that can be revoked by the next person to get into power. Real, lasting change requires revolution not reform or voting.
Okay, but that’s separate from the notion that reform or voting are not worthwhile. For that, you have to reject the notion that revolution is affected by conditions in society (which is absurd) and assert that harm to oppressed demographics is immaterial (which is intuitively repugnant).
Reform won’t give us socialism. But it alleviates suffering and can put us in a better position to strike for socialism.
The eight-hour day fucking sucks, but without it, we would be in WORSE organizing conditions in the modern day. Universal healthcare does not solve unequal access to healthcare systems, but few would argue that it was pointless for the UK and every other civilized country out there to pass.
In any case, the objection made here is that self-proclaimed leftists who only punch left-of-society’s-center, but never seem to find any even vaguely comparable amount of time to punch right-of-society’s-center, is legitimately not a fucking good thing.
“I agree, he wasn’t perfect and was certainly a product of a broken system. However, nothing you’ve said has changed my missing him, nor my believing that he was infinitely better than Trump, even if not perfect.”
We’re looking at him through the lens of 2026. At least he pushed for the Affordable Care Act and repealing of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The man wasn’t a saint but he sure as shit is better than what we have now. Yes I’d rather have a socialist like Bernie Sanders but this is all we have unfortunately and if I had to make a choice between the two administrations I’d go with Obama 11 times out of 10.
You, like everyone else, fail to realize that by having a weak leader, it dooms us to the fake strong leader of the republicans. Or the fascimile of the republicans in EVERY western country. Wake up. We will get reform, under strong leadership, either we give it to them, or fascists will.
Bayard Rustin was a gay man who was one of the top organizers of MLK’s March On Washington.
Rustin never pushed King to speak out on gay rights, because they both know that the USA in the 1960’s wasn’t ready for that conversation.
I would never sit with people who don’t value my opinion, even if they don’t like it. And even if that happens to be family: stop being toxic or fuck you. 🤷♂️
Tschüss
All US presidents should be sent to the Hague