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bossman

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Posts posted by bossman

    Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

    in General Banter

    Posted

     

    Here's the kicker: we get the least out of our relationship with Saudi Arabia compared to other Gulf states, and it's now coming at the expense of other allies. Saudi Arabia has refused to host US military bases since 2003. It only engages in anti-terrorist operations if it threatens their regime's power domestically. It places the burden of coalition contributions on the other Arab League members. They've also taken advantage of Jared Kushner's personal grievances against their rivals Qatar when they pushed for an embargo on that country, which Trump wholeheartedly backed, despite the fact that Qatar is a major host of the US Navy and essentially the most strategic base in the Gulf. Saudi Arabia, despite having more citizens participate in 9/11 than any other nation and thousands volunteer to serve in ISIS, was spared from the travel ban that affected 7 other countries.

     

    And then there's the moral failings of Saudi Arabia the US has failed to call out. Khashoggi's murder is a side-note to the Yemen crisis that is leaving 20 millions people without food, water and 2.5 million displaced completely. Indiscriminate Saudi airstrikes have killed thousands. All of this is to keep the Yemeni regime, one as brutal as the Saudi regime, in power to prevent a Iranian-favored government from taking office. It poses no immediate threat otherwise. It's not even as strategically arguable of a conflict as Syria, Libya, or Iraq.

     

    All of this is for arm sales and maintaining investments. There's plenty of options to pivot away from Saudi Arabia and back to the other Gulf States. There is plenty of push back via embargoes, sanctions, and restrictions the US can enact in order to put pressure back on Saudi Arabia. We have done so in the past with Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey without ever completely ending our strategic alliances with those countries. It's difficult, tricky, and often arbitrarily enforced but that's the true reality the Trump refuses to engage in. He is embracing the cynical aspects of moral failings in the region and taking the easy way out. That's what makes this more sinister than even the most dubious actions of Obama, Bush, and Clinton in the past when it comes to the Sauds.

     

    It's remarkable that Trump is so absurdly curt and open about the fact that we are excusing human rights violations, an assassination, and a bloodbath in Yemen in order to protect an arms deal. While every other POTUS has done this as a policy they always maintained the same nuanced and subtle spin on it. You have to in the middle east, it's essential. Those aspects are what Trump has completely rejected and by doing so it eliminates any high ground the US had morally and pragmatically.

     

     

    not sure if trump's curtness is more sinister tho than other potus.. it's almost more transparent, like business-as-usual. not that that's refreshing or anything, but it makes it harder to maintain illusion of moral US foreign policy. I worry trump has become a magnet for frustrations, like he's the problem (of course he is, but its all fucked, much bigger than trump). like US doesn't kill journalists, politicians, civilians

    What if I told You

    in General Banter

    Posted

    @diatoms 

     

    some of what you listed conflicts with my memory too.. its fuzzy and my memory could be shit, but talked with my parents and they were certain it was "your really like me," 4 people in car w/ jfk, "mirror mirror" & berenstein bears. also, girlfriend in high school liked a reddish color she called chartreuse.. 

     

    collective misremembering? lhc's ALICE went thru the rabbit hole? it is fascinating 

    Marvel Movies [formerly MCU]

    in General Banter

    Posted

    I understand what you're saying

     

    but i think as adults these stories don't serve us well, especially in the hands of big studios. the marvel/dc colorful aynrandyness of men imbued with advanced powers&abilities protecting, governing the seemingly innoccuous, impotent populace from dangers beyond their capability & understanding is sorta a dangerous idea to keep cramming in the eyeballs & brains of kids, no'? &the fact that so many adults, especially parents are eating this stuff up so fervently as the world around them looms scary and big just feeds this idea of latent impotence against such an ineffable reality lurking outside the home theater..

    Marvel Movies [formerly MCU]

    in General Banter

    Posted · Edited by bossman

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/21/superheroes-cultural-catastrophe-alan-moore-comics-watchmen

     

    "To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children's characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence," he wrote to Ó Méalóid. "It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite 'universes' presented by DC or Marvel Comics. I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times."C

    Graphic Artists Thread

    in General Banter

    Posted

    good thread, keep the names coming,

     

    Tony DiTerlizzi - illustrator for tsr/dungeons and dragons in the 90's.. his work for Planescape is gold standard fantasy art

     

    Yoshitaka Amano - his work for the final fantasy series is fantastic (esp 4 & 6)

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