Obama cancels visit with Putin • Hacker News Board

Re: Obama cancels visit with Putin

#21

Post by orthecreedence » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

harrytuttle wrote: post #17

orthecreedence wrote: post #5

The US is like a screaming child throwing a tantrum right now. We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Now we're stamping our feet and breaking relations with other powerful nations over the stupidest issue. Here's a thought: if you don't want whistleblowers, don't do things that make people blow the whistle. Maybe in the next few decades we'll learn that meddling in everyone else's busine…

> We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Only Americans ever thought this. The rest was propaganda.

Interesting. Thanks for the perspective. I guess I was never privy to the propaganda until recently when it became really blatant and obvious.

Also, relevant username ;).

Re: Obama cancels visit with Putin

#22

Post by moocowduckquack » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 4:01 PM UTC

northwest wrote: post #16

orthecreedence wrote: post #5

The US is like a screaming child throwing a tantrum right now. We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Now we're stamping our feet and breaking relations with other powerful nations over the stupidest issue. Here's a thought: if you don't want whistleblowers, don't do things that make people blow the whistle. Maybe in the next few decades we'll learn that meddling in everyone else's busine…

Absolutely spot on. And: People are repeating "Never forget." - and at the same time, people seem to have forgotten that there was a time when we had no terrorism (true story!). The question nobody's asking anymore: What is the reason for terrorism? How did we get there? Nowadays, fighting some symptons seems to be all we can come up with. (The only reason I can see for this is: Because it's big business. )

"there was a time when we had no terrorism"

I remember that. I think it may have been a Tuesday.

Re: Obama cancels visit with Putin

#23

Post by orthecreedence » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 4:06 PM UTC

northwest wrote: post #16

orthecreedence wrote: post #5

The US is like a screaming child throwing a tantrum right now. We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Now we're stamping our feet and breaking relations with other powerful nations over the stupidest issue. Here's a thought: if you don't want whistleblowers, don't do things that make people blow the whistle. Maybe in the next few decades we'll learn that meddling in everyone else's busine…

Absolutely spot on. And: People are repeating "Never forget." - and at the same time, people seem to have forgotten that there was a time when we had no terrorism (true story!). The question nobody's asking anymore: What is the reason for terrorism? How did we get there? Nowadays, fighting some symptons seems to be all we can come up with. (The only reason I can see for this is: Because it's big business. )

I agree there are most likely big business/defense interests behind a lot of this.

But any intelligent person would see that our reaction to terrorism (bombing countries in the Middle East) is only going to create more terrorists. For every terrorist we kill, there are others we kill who are not...what if we kill someone's child? Or even if we kill a child's dog? This is the kind of ill-will that harbors "terrorism" and makes people our supposed enemies.

Of course people are going to hate us if we're bombing them all the time.

So on one end we're trying to stop terrorism by killing every last one of them (heh, good luck) and in reality are trying to provoke more attacks so our government can gain more power in the hopes of "stopping" terrorism. The cycle continues, the contractors win, the government wins, the citizens lose, the terrorists keep fighting.

Re: Obama cancels visit with Putin

#24

Post by enko » Wed, Aug 07, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

harrytuttle wrote: post #17

orthecreedence wrote: post #5

The US is like a screaming child throwing a tantrum right now. We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Now we're stamping our feet and breaking relations with other powerful nations over the stupidest issue. Here's a thought: if you don't want whistleblowers, don't do things that make people blow the whistle. Maybe in the next few decades we'll learn that meddling in everyone else's busine…

> We were not so long ago lauded as the greatest nation in the world. Only Americans ever thought this. The rest was propaganda.

It's not a very good phrase, since "greatest" means whatever the speaker wants it to mean. You could plausibly say that about almost any country - everyone has something they're "the greatest" at.

To be fair, though, I reckon that there was a period in time in which the USA did seem to be holding the generally accepted global flag for "the country that's doing things right". Not perfect, but the USA had a much better reputation than it does now for generally having its shit together and moving in the right direction.

Cracks started to appear in the 1970s, I'd say, and the edifice had completely crumbled by the mid 90s.