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Also an old quote from him is: "Democracy is a like a streetcar. You ride it to your destination, and then you get off." That was when he was mayor of Istanbul like 20 years ago, and guess what, he got off the streetcar.
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Feb 19, 2020 16:00
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Yeah, I'll readily believe that totalitarianism was always his objective.
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Feb 19, 2020 18:49
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MrYenko posted:So I guess Erdogan is literally trying to reestablish the Ottoman Empire? They'll become the sick man of Europe again.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:29
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MrYenko posted:So I guess Erdogan is literally trying to reestablish the Ottoman Empire? It's more like he wants to threaten Assad with direct intervention. Which he has been positioning Turkish forces to do for the last few months. If he can't prop up a friendly not-Assad area in Syria it means Turkey is about to receive a million+ more Syrian refugees.
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Feb 19, 2020 21:54
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https://twitter.com/EliLake/status/1230115590939070464 uhhhhh
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Feb 19, 2020 21:59
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Goddamned communists trying to brainwash people into thinking nuclear war would be bad 
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Feb 19, 2020 22:02
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I don't even know what his angle is. We would've easily won the nuclear war with no problems over here at all?
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Feb 19, 2020 22:04
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I don’t even understand, because Reagan took the film very seriously
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Feb 19, 2020 22:19
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It traumatized him as a kid to become a soulless husk that longs for slavic death.
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Feb 20, 2020 00:20
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aphid_licker posted:Just going and saying that out loud is kind of wow from a leader of a European regional power. Let's hope that he's blowing smoke / Putin tells him to knock it off. I could see Russia staying quiet on this if it simplifies the Syrian situation.
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Feb 20, 2020 04:14
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Godholio posted:I could see Russia staying quiet on this if it simplifies the Syrian situation. I'm sure Erdogan is looking for several final solutions to various problems he has.
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Feb 20, 2020 04:46
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What a moron
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Feb 20, 2020 12:11
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I happen to know Eli. What makes this tweet even funnier is that he once refused to acknowledge the fact that the USSR posed more of an existential threat to the US than Al Qaeda.
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Feb 20, 2020 15:45
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drgitlin posted:I happen to know Eli. What makes this tweet even funnier is that he once refused to acknowledge the fact that the USSR posed more of an existential threat to the US than Al Qaeda. Tell him that someone on the internet (me) thinks he's stupid.
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Feb 20, 2020 16:00
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It’s a very commonly expressed sentiment
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Feb 20, 2020 16:44
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drgitlin posted:I happen to know Eli. What makes this tweet even funnier is that he once refused to acknowledge the fact that the USSR posed more of an existential threat to the US than Al Qaeda. hahaha What's scarier, the nuclear arsenal of the United Soviet Socialist Republics or at least, like 20 guys in Afghanistan
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Feb 20, 2020 17:06
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Nebakenezzer posted:hahaha That's kind of an interesting question, though. Obviously the USSR could obliterate the USA and cause global destruction as a side effect. Scarier! But they are also an actor we can deter and with which we have a stable though adversarial relationship, whereas Al Qaeda can't be deterred. So if we think of scary in terms of "which one is more likely to actually kill Americans," I'd say Al Qaeda is scarier. OTOH, in drgitlin's terms of existential threat, that's USSR by an incomparable margin.
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Feb 20, 2020 17:31
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drgitlin posted:I happen to know Eli. What makes this tweet even funnier is that he once refused to acknowledge the fact that the USSR posed more of an existential threat to the US than Al Qaeda. What's his point, that MAD meant that the USSR never really posed a threat? Still struggling with the argument here
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Feb 20, 2020 17:48
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zoux posted:What's his point, that MAD meant that the USSR never really posed a threat? Still struggling with the argument here But MAD relies on there being a threat to maintain peace. If MAD means that there’s no threat, then MAD isn’t operative, which means there *is* a threat, which means MAD is operative. But that means ERROR ERROR HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS
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Feb 20, 2020 18:02
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Zorak of Michigan posted:That's kind of an interesting question, though. Obviously the USSR could obliterate the USA and cause global destruction as a side effect. Scarier! But they are also an actor we can deter and with which we have a stable though adversarial relationship, whereas Al Qaeda can't be deterred. So if we think of scary in terms of "which one is more likely to actually kill Americans," I'd say Al Qaeda is scarier. OTOH, in drgitlin's terms of existential threat, that's USSR by an incomparable margin. Going by just American deaths, how many Americans died due to proxy wars with the USSR?
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Feb 20, 2020 18:03
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drgitlin posted:I happen to know Eli. What makes this tweet even funnier is that he once refused to acknowledge the fact that the USSR posed more of an existential threat to the US than Al Qaeda. This point completely hinges on how you define "existential threat," but it's not crazy. In sepsis, it isn't the invaders that kill, but the immune overreaction. Twice as many Americans have died in the War on Terror than died on 9/11, and the US's position in the world -- its ability to defend itself against overt existential threats like the USSR -- has been significantly weakened by attacking threats that are not themselves existential.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:48
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Flikken posted:Going by just American deaths, how many Americans died due to proxy wars with the USSR? I agree with the broader point you're making (that ~100k+ between Korea and Vietnam is a hell of a lot more than Al Quaeda ever managed) but just to play the devil's advocate, I'll ask this: Going just by American civilian deaths, how many more died due to terrorist attacks than poo poo the USSR pulled? Killing some soldiers in a foreign country is sad and makes people angry at politicians, but it's nothing like the existential sphincter clench when you see 3k+ civilians die in office buildings an airplanes right here in the US. A war on the other side of the world isn't a direct threat to anyone who isn't in the military. It's not like people sat awake at night worrying that the VC were going to kill them while they were walking their dog in Ohio. But think back on how poo poo went down post 9/11. Hoooooly gently caress there was a metric fuckload of paranoia. Just everyone worried that Osama bin Laden was going to jump out of a bush and make a beheading video featuring their toddler. We're still seeing the effects of that today. It's died down a bit, but you still don't have to look too hard to find someone who is willing to talk to you about how parts of Detroit are under Sharia law or whatever. So, for the average rear end in a top hat eating a hamburger in the US, I'd argue that they see terrorism as a clearer threat than any actual state level actor. Which is kind of the point of terrorism.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:50
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hepatizon posted:This point completely hinges on how you define "existential threat," "As a species" or "As a nation" the USSR still seems the far greater threat.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:52
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The phrase "existential threat" means a threat to existence, and there's no way al-Qaeda could end the existence of the American state except possibly in a roundabout way by causing the government to slide into fascism and civil war. The USSR made every American for forty years fear that they'd destroy the United States, by the straightforward means of killing the entire population. The tweet is ridiculous and there's no need to defend it with technicalities.
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Feb 20, 2020 18:57
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That Works posted:"As a species" or "As a nation" the USSR still seems the far greater threat. That is not even close to a quantitative framing of the question. Does threat only look at the impact of the worst case (nuclear attack), or does it take its probability into account? If US isn't annihilated but becomes a client state of other superpowers because we built the wrong kind of military, is that an existential threat? Chamale posted:except possibly in a roundabout way by causing the government to slide into fascism and civil war Those "roundabout ways" are the entire significance of terrorism
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Feb 20, 2020 19:02
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zoux posted:What's his point, that MAD meant that the USSR never really posed a threat? Still struggling with the argument here He’s a warmongering neocon and at the time his agenda was warmongering against the Islamic world. I’m not sure there was any point other than that.
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Feb 20, 2020 19:10
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Chamale posted:The phrase "existential threat" means a threat to existence, and there's no way al-Qaeda could end the existence of the American state except possibly in a roundabout way by causing the government to slide into fascism and civil war. The USSR made every American for forty years fear that they'd destroy the United States, by the straightforward means of killing the entire population. The tweet is ridiculous and there's no need to defend it with technicalities. To the American state? No. But to your typical American who is afraid of random violence? Yeah. Again, it's hard to over emphasize just how badly 9/11 broke people. The idea of being killed in your home city as opposed to fighting on some foreign field had a deep impact on a lot of people, and for the individual worried about their continued existence it's existential as gently caress. Al Quaeda was never going to threaten the American state, but it sure as poo poo worried Americans about their continued good health. Now, all that's irrational as hell. If you lived in New York in the 80s Soviet nuclear weapons were a waaaaay bigger threat to your existence than terrorist were to any individual new yorker on 9/10/2001. Still, we never had a nuclear detonation in a major American city to drive that home. Nuclear war was the big threat that never happened, while terrorists talking down sky scrapers was the smaller threat that people watched live on TV.
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Feb 20, 2020 19:17
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9/11 was certainly the beginning of the end for that was widely assumed to be the permanent post-Cold War neoliberal consensus. It's usually not hard to draw relatively straight lines between your favorite [previously unthinkable political thing in the first world] and the Twin Towers falling. Of course the argument that nuclear annihilation was somehow overblown is false. But OBL really did end the world of the 90s.
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Feb 20, 2020 20:02
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hepatizon posted:That is not even close to a quantitative framing of the question. Does threat only look at the impact of the worst case (nuclear attack), or does it take its probability into account? If US isn't annihilated but becomes a client state of other superpowers because we built the wrong kind of military, is that an existential threat? You're trying to say (as I read it) that you could see a way that Al Qaeda could be perceived as an existential threat to the United States on par with the USSR. I think they would not be an existential threat as viewed by: the survival of humanity, the survival of most citizens of the USA, or the survival of the USA's government and society. Only the last part could they ever really threaten, and only to such a smaller extent compared to the USSR that I don't think it's even worth comparing.
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Feb 20, 2020 20:09
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I feel obliged to point out that the USSR was responsible (via material assistance) for considerably more terrorism than Al Qaeda.
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Feb 20, 2020 20:12
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Mortabis posted:I feel obliged to point out that the USSR was responsible (via material assistance) for considerably more terrorism than Al Qaeda. i mean so is the us
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Feb 20, 2020 20:21
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FruitNYogurtParfait posted:i mean so is the us Definitely not. Years of lead in Italy, FARC, half of Africa, the PLO, etc already laps any numbers the US supported and is barely scratching the surface The US maybe supported a tiny handful such as the Mujahideen
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Feb 20, 2020 20:53
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Hauldren Collider posted:The US maybe supported a tiny handful such as the Mujahideen And, you know, all that poo poo in South America. And UNITA in Angola. Also, as you point out, if it weren't for American funding of terrorism bin Laden would have probably just remained some random schmoe running a construction company in Pakistan. Oops.
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Feb 20, 2020 21:24
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Hauldren Collider posted:Definitely not. Years of lead in Italy, FARC, half of Africa, the PLO, etc already laps any numbers the US supported and is barely scratching the surface Do coups count? Right wing death squads?
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Feb 20, 2020 21:25
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WOOP WOOP PULL UP
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Feb 20, 2020 22:14
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feedmegin posted:And, you know, all that poo poo in South America. And UNITA in Angola. OBL was Saudi funded and part of a group backed by the ISI long before the US got involved.
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Feb 20, 2020 22:16
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I'd say Transformers The Movie.
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Feb 20, 2020 23:32
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Friday the 13th part II head on the table scene
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Feb 20, 2020 23:38
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SimonCat posted:I'd say Transformers The Movie.  that or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure for me (Large Marge)
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Feb 20, 2020 23:44
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SimonCat posted:I'd say Transformers The Movie. haha I'd blocked that out of my mind, after watching the tv show obsessively I was horrified when bumblebee got killed right at the start and smoke was coming out of his mouth. I remember my dad renting us 'fantastic planet" as a kid which is an amazing seventies animated scifi film that iirc was made in Czechoslovakia and was an allegory for Soviet oppression there. It was absolutely loving bizarre and not really suitable for kids.
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Feb 20, 2020 23:47
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