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The incredible thing is that Krushchev apparently knew that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were going to be removed anyway . . . so what he was offering was a very well calculated climb down from a nuclear confrontation. Peculiarly, the US rejected that offer -- must have perplexed the Soviets, who'd have thought "we're giving them something for nothing" Instead, we almost had a nuclear war, and the deal we ended up with "we'll take our missiles out of Cuba, if you promise never to invade Cuba" was actually worse for the US, since we were planning to invade Cuba, and routinely invade nations in the Caribbean and Central America-- a bad precedent to say we wouldn't, more or less contraventing the "Monroe Doctrine". The moral of the story: assuming that your adversary will understand the subtleties of your intentions, and your political exigencies is a really bad idea. He's got his own political problems, and it will be very hard for him to understand your intentions . . . whenever a political leader claims to understand the motives of another nation, you can be pretty sure that he's probably wrong. Hard to understand your own nation, next to impossible to understand someone else's |
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As for international news coverage, here in DC (Capital of the Free World, Most Powerful City in the World, etc...) with the embassies and large international community (also known as DF's) we get more than most of the US. The local news will often run stories of non-US issues especially if it is an important subject. We also have a plethora of international news channels. My cable provides me with the BBC, CNN International, France 24, Russia Times, and Al-Jazeera all in English. They also have a number of news channels in other languages. I travel quite a bit within the US and I always watch the local news. A few years back I was in Tampa and in the 3 hours of local news coverage they had 15 minutes of National news and no international news. Not having any internet access at the time, it drove me nuts. |
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Racist opposition to Obama?
As an outsider looking in, there appears to be an element of racism in some of the factions who oppose Barak Obama.
Any mileage in this? |
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Of course after living in the deep south for 24 years, I can give you plenty of personal observations on this...plenty, believe me. The word "nigger" doesn't even raise an eyebrow down here, it's just a fact for most folks. (Not all, but a lot). I mean, white Republican southerners...comon', what do you think they think of him? (And before any southerners here take offense, my mother was from the south, and I have a lot of good friends here that are just plain good folks that I love dearly. There's also a man that's been like a father to me that would give me his last dollar if I asked him to, and I would do the same..so don't even start...that dawg won't hunt.) ;) |
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I'd say: there's a "paranoid style" in American politics -- race just gets thrown in as one more nasty thing to say, but the Right is no longer a distinctly racist force. They actually do like Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas . . . This is progress, of a very limited sort. The nation still has paranoid kooks, but the acceptability of outright racism has dwindled. |
They don't like Cain or Thomas, they tolerate them. They are their tokens. After all, they can't appear racist, so guys like Cain and Thomas are acceptable because they are relatively inert.
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To me, the split seems ideological, more than racial. They hate Obama, for ideological reasons, and then say pretty much every nasty thing they can think of about him. It's somewhat similar to some of the anti-Semitic stuff that's said about George Soros. They start out hating the the things Soros is for, and then just go to the big closet of nasty for stuff to say. There are lots of right wing Jews who are part of the craziness, and they're genuinely accepted (see Glenn Becks's weird trip to Israel, for example) With Obama, who is easily the most unusual person, with the most unusual name, to hold the office of President, I think his "foreign-ness" is more the issue personally. I've often wondered what the reaction would have been if someone like Deval Patrick or Kurt Schmoke had been the first black president (they're similar to Obama in some ways, Ivy Leaguers, more law professor than politician -- but their backgrounds are much less exotic). |
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There is absolutely an element of racism in the criticism of Obama. They critics are just being a little more clever in how they say it. |
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Some people are opposed to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Others were opposed to Hillary Clinton. Does this make them misogynists? |
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