Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[diana_eva]

I'm not constantly tracking Chas, just remembering previous posts from very recent history. It's no great memory feat. If it seems frequent, it is because he constantly trolls, then posts that he is quitting the thread, and then almost immediately breaks his word to start posting again. As far as posters in this particular thread, he is the only person who rage quits and then embarrasses themselves by almost immediately posting again. Other posters have written that they were stopping posting because of apparently legitimate reasons at the time, and have started posting again when the circumstances changed. That seems perfectly acceptable to me. Are you trying to equate these other posters with Chas?

 

No I'm just trying to tell you to stop doing that. I don't care why you feel compelled to do this sort of post tracking but it's not interesting and not constructive and in the end how many times do you really need to express that "chas said he wont post but he did".

[hrothgar]

For what is worth chas has been a helpful and useful yellow on BBO for a long time. I wish I never saw what his political views are, but that wont change that online, interacting with BBOers, he has been helpful and offered his time for free for many years.

 

And Jeffrey Epstein gave lots of money to MIT...

 

You are judged by the company that you choose to keep.

[y66]

From Martin Wolfe at FT:

 

History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. This remark is often incorrectly attributed to Mark Twain. But it is a good one.

 

History is the most powerful guide to the present, because it speaks to what is permanent in our humanity, especially the forces that drive us towards conflict. Since the biggest current geopolitical event, by far, is the burgeoning friction between the US and China, it is illuminating to look back to similar events in the past. In a thought-provoking book,Destined for War, Harvard’s Graham Allison started with the account of the Peloponnesian war by Thucydides, the great Athenian historian of the 5th century BC. However, I will focus on the three eras of conflict of the past 120 years. From them much is to be learnt.

 

The most recent conflict was the cold war (1948-1989) between a liberal democratic west, led by the US, and the communist Soviet Union, a transformed version of the pre-first world war Russian empire. This was a great power conflict between the chief victors of the second world war. But it was also an ideological conflict over the nature of modernity. The west ultimately won. It did so because the scale of western economies and the speed of western technological advances vastly outmatched those of the Soviet Union. The subjects of the Soviet empire also became disenchanted with their corrupt and despotic rulers and the Soviet leadership itself concluded its system had failed. Despite moments of danger, notably the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the cold war also ended peacefully.

 

Going further back, we reach the interwar years. This was an interregnum in which the attempt to restore the pre-first world war order failed, the US withdrew from Europe and a huge financial and economic crisis, emanating originally from the US, ravaged the world economy. It was a time of civil strife, populism, nationalism, communism, fascism and national socialism. The 1930s are an abiding lesson in the possibility of democratic collapse once elites fail. They are also a lesson of what happens when great countries fall into the hands of power-hungry lunatics.

 

Going further back still, we reach the decisive period 1870-1914. As Paul Kennedy noted in his classic book, The Rise and the Fall of the Great Powers, in 1880, the UK generated 23 per cent of global manufacturing output. By 1913, this had fallen to 14 per cent. Over the same period, Germany’s share rose from 9 per cent to 15 per cent. This shift in the European balance led to a catastrophic Thucydidean war between the UK, an anxious status quo power, especially once the Germans started building a modern fleet, and Germany, a resentful rising one. Meanwhile, US industrial output went from 15 to 32 per cent of the world’s, while China fell into irrelevance. Thereupon, US action (in the 20th century’s big conflicts) and inaction (in the interwar years) determined the outcomes.

 

Today’s era is a mixture of all three of these. It is marked by a conflict of political systems and ideology between two superpowers, as in the cold war, by a post-financial crisis decline of confidence in democratic politics and market economics as well as by the rise of populism, nationalism and authoritarianism, as in the 1930s, and, most significantly, by a dramatic shift in relative economic power, with the rise of China, as with the US before 1914. For the first time since then, the US faces a power with an economic potential exceeding its own.

 

The pre-1914 period ended in a catastrophic war, as did the interwar period, albeit with a relatively successful post-1945 aftermath. The cold war ended in peaceful triumph. Now, the world confronts challenges that easily match those of the earlier periods. So what lessons are we to learn from these eras?

 

Perhaps the most obvious one is that quality of leadership matters. President Xi Jinping’s capacities and intentions are clear enough: he is devoted to party dominance over a resurgent China. But the political system of the western world and especially the US and UK, the two powers that dragged the world through the 1930s, is failing. US President Donald Trump’s erratic leadership recalls that of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm. Without better leadership, the west and so the wider world are in deep trouble.

 

Another lesson is the overriding importance of avoiding war. Prof Allison describes well how mutual suspicion fueled the journey to war in 1914. It is even more crucial for the US and China to avoid head-on conflict now. That was the great success of the cold war. But nuclear deterrence may not be enough.

 

Yet perhaps the most important conclusion is that avoiding yet another catastrophe is insufficient. We cannot afford the old games of great power rivalry, however inevitable they must seem. Our fates are too deeply intertwined for that. A positive-sum vision of relations between the west, China and the rest has to become dominant if we are to manage the economic, security and environmental challenges we face. Humanity has to do far better than it has done before. Today, that must seem a fantasy, given the quality of western leadership, authoritarianism in China and rising tide of mutual suspicion. But we must try. We have to manage this difficult new era strategically. On our ability to do that all our futures now depend.

[Winstonm]

Turns out the "no quid pro quo" phone call is a phantom - didn't happen.

 

 

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Susan Simpson

@TheViewFromLL2

The impeachment inquiry has been crippled from the beginning by the Exec Branch's obstruction, and its refusal to produce any records to the House.

 

But detailed, contemporaneous documentation showing Sondland lied in his testimony does exist. Because the NSC lawyers have it.

[akwoo]

I have a sad prediction.

 

China is going to commit genocide in Hong Kong.

 

The Chinese rulers realize that this would set them back a generation economically (and seriously, but to a lesser extent, damage the global economy), but democracy in Hong Kong is an existential threat to them, and going back a generation economically is not. Given the depth of support for democracy in Hong Kong, it will take genocide to wipe out the threat.

 

The sad thing about this event is that the rest of the world won't do much to stop it, and might not even be willing to take in 5 million or so refugees (a rough estimate of the number of Hong Kong residents who want democracy) if (as I think is likely) the Chinese government lets them all leave. It will to a certain extent normalize genocide, and might encourage some other countries to copy the example.

 

The success of the Chinese will encourage authoritarian governments around the world as well as advocates for authoritarianism elsewhere.

 

A significant number of Americans might not even object that strongly, on the grounds that such an action enhances US power in the world (which it certainly does).

[kenberg]

I have a sad prediction.

 

China is going to commit genocide in Hong Kong.

 

The Chinese rulers realize that this would set them back a generation economically (and seriously, but to a lesser extent, damage the global economy), but democracy in Hong Kong is an existential threat to them, and going back a generation economically is not. Given the depth of support for democracy in Hong Kong, it will take genocide to wipe out the threat.

 

The sad thing about this event is that the rest of the world won't do much to stop it, and might not even be willing to take in 5 million or so refugees (a rough estimate of the number of Hong Kong residents who want democracy) if (as I think is likely) the Chinese government lets them all leave. It will to a certain extent normalize genocide, and might encourage some other countries to copy the example.

 

The success of the Chinese will encourage authoritarian governments around the world as well as advocates for authoritarianism elsewhere.

 

A significant number of Americans might not even object that strongly, on the grounds that such an action enhances US power in the world (which it certainly does).

 

There is a young married couple with kids, they are having troubles, I would love to be able to interfere in a positive way, but how? That's the way I feel about Hong Kong. Surely everyone involved in setting things up back in 1997, or whenever it was, understood that it would eventually come to this in some form. Nobody could be so naive as to think that the dual government idea would actually be stable. So they, the experts, didn't know what to do about it then, and I, just me. don't know what to do about it now. I am open to good suggestions, I just don't have any.

[y66]

From The Economist (Nov 21):

 

China’s official narrative about Hong Kong is that Western “black hands” are training, organising and even paying protesters to destroy Hong Kong—part of a larger plot to hold down a rising China. When America’s Senate passed a bill supportive of the protesters on November 20th Beijing reacted with a fury that grew out of and fed that narrative. Many mainlanders, bombarded by state media with images of protesters insulting China or waving foreign flags, long to see the protests crushed.

 

The Chinese government is clear that it wants things sorted. But it has held back from sending in the People’s Liberation Army (pla) and paramilitary police to quell the disturbances—indeed, though one can never know what a secretive leadership is planning, it may never seriously have been considered. In leaked comments from a private meeting with businessmen, Mrs Lam implied that China’s threats had been so much bluster. One of her advisers says that, although the protests represent a big loss of face to China’s leadership, the loss of face that would come with abandoning all semblance of “one country, two systems” would be worse.

 

For a government that makes much of its decisiveness under the brilliant leadership of Xi Jinping, the absence of anything resembling a strategy to sort out Hong Kong is striking. The best spin that officials can put on it is that their leaders are playing a long game, waiting for popular sentiment to turn against the protesters and reconcile itself to something like the status quo ante. This seems unlikely—but possibly looks more plausible if you sincerely believe, as hardliners say they do, that Hong Kong opinion polls cannot be trusted because they are conducted by universities and think-tanks that are hotbeds of Western liberalism, and if your view of the territory has long been coloured by reports from Liaison Office officials who tell you what you want to hear.

 

A deeper problem is that the government in Beijing has pre-emptively undercut the possibility of a satisfactory settlement. As the Hong Kong police argue in private, the unrest needs a political solution. But the Communist Party has systematically constrained the space in which the give and take of Hong Kong politics can take place. Those constraints created the dissatisfaction that led to the protests; coming to some accommodation would require setting some of them aside. But China’s leadership is unwilling to countenance such action. An example: when Hong Kong’s high court overturned a ban on face coverings imposed by Mrs Lam, the National People’s Congress in Beijing made its disapproval clear.

 

If expecting politics to work in a place where they have tried to remove that possibility fails, China’s leaders “have no Plan B,” according to a senior adviser to Mrs Lam with close links to Beijing. And so things are left in the hands of Mrs Lam and her paralysed, incompetent government. Mrs Lam is showing the same intransigence in the face of calls for an independent investigation into the causes of the unrest and into police behaviour as she originally did over the extradition bill. When in an unaccustomed fit of good sense she acknowledged the need to reach out to young people, she did so at a youth camp organised by the reviled pla—and in the Mandarin of the overlord rather than Cantonese.

 

Going with the flow

With no one in power taking the initiative and violence ratcheting up, the outlook appears grim. But the district-council elections set for November 24th could possibly help move the action away from the streets. These elections, mostly concerned with rubbish collection and the management of public housing estates, have never previously been a big deal. This time democrats see them as an opportunity to show that the energy of the streets can be channelled into the ballot box.

 

With a democrat contesting every council seat and 386,000 (mainly young) new voters, the poll offers the chance for a symbolic coup de théâtre and, indirectly, a shift in the composition of Legco. Half of the committee’s 70 members are directly elected—six of the others come from the district councils. The election results will also affect the make-up of the committees, tightly circumscribed by Beijing, which every five years choose the chief executive.

 

It might seem strange, in the current circumstances, that the elections are going ahead. But both sides want them. Mok, the protester behind the barricades at PolyU, says that though he views the elections as part of the tainted system he is fighting, he and his comrades are determined to vote. The government, for its part, desperately wants to show that some things are carrying on as normal. And for the elections to go ahead, it says it needs calm. This puts democratic leaders in something of a spot. They need the frontliners to leave the barricades—yet saying so out loud would risk splitting the protest movement.

 

When his pupil in “Longstreet” worries that wateriness does not sound like the way to beat his fearsome opponent, Bruce Lee upbraids him: “You want to learn the way to win, but never accept the way to lose.” The Hong Kong protesters know that they are not going to win a liberal democracy any time soon. But nor do they necessarily need to follow Lee’s last advice: that the pupil must learn the art of dying. Some in Beijing acknowledge that a fundamental change has taken place in Hong Kong, and suggest that the central government will be “very cautious” about its next steps. In response to the suggestion that the Communist Party had lost the hearts and minds of a whole generation in Hong Kong, one thoughtful person in the capital said: “Oh, two.” That is the case for giving Hong Kong the political space to start sorting out the mess itself. It is not a case Mr Xi is likely to take to. But some waters flow slowly.

From The Economist (Nov 30):

 

District elections in Hong Kong are normally about rat control and bus routes. The polls on November 24th were a vote on Hong Kong’s future as a liberal Chinese enclave. The question, in effect, was whether ordinary people support the government and its backers in Beijing in their illiberal methods. The answer was a resounding no. The turnout, of over 70%, was higher than any recorded in any kind of election in Hong Kong in which the public has a say (see article). Pro-democracy politicians almost swept the board.

 

For Hong Kong’s leaders and China’s Communist Party, this is a rebuke—compounded three days later when President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that supports Hong Kong’s democracy. Irked by months of protests, but unwilling to use troops to crush the demonstrators, they had hoped ordinary Hong Kongers would turn against the black-clad pro-democracy protesters. The election result destroys that dream. The “silent majority” turns out to back the protesters’ cause, despite the violent tactics of some.

 

In a true democracy a vote in which opposition candidates took control of 17 out of 18 councils, having previously held none, would end political careers. But Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s hugely unpopular chief executive, shows no inclination to give in to the protesters by stepping down. That is a pity. Even though Mrs Lam’s successor would be chosen in effect by the Communist Party, a change of leader would allow both sides to draw a deep breath. Concessions are easier to make when they do not involve a climbdown by the person offering them. Mrs Lam has too much at stake.

 

Whoever leads Hong Kong has to seek the Communist Party’s approval when making important decisions. So it is in Beijing that the next crucial steps for Hong Kong will be worked out. An obvious one would be to launch an independent inquiry into police conduct since the unrest began in June. This has long been one of the protesters’ main demands—they allege that the police have been brutal, just as the police accuse the protesters of dangerous aggression. Mrs Lam has approved an investigation, but only by a body that tends to side with the government. She would not have to shift much to win a cheer from the streets.

 

The next, harder, step should be to restart a public debate about political reform. This was suspended in 2015 after pro-democracy legislators rejected a party-backed proposal that would have let the chief executive be chosen for the first time by popular vote, but from candidates picked by a committee stacked with the party’s supporters. Were the offer revived, the democrats should consider it favourably. Such an arrangement, though far from ideal, would encourage chief-executive candidates to appeal to ordinary Hong Kongers. Sunday’s elections show that voters would spurn a party yes-man.

 

Sadly, there is no sign that leaders in Beijing are contemplating any concessions. The Communist Party’s media have depicted the district elections as unfair. They say pro-establishment politicians were intimidated by the “black terror” unleashed by protesters whom officials accuse of being trained and paid for by America and Britain. They point to the roughly 40% of voters who went for pro-government candidates, and say this suggests that many people are repulsed by the protest movement.

 

Some Hong Kongers are indeed sickened by the violence and fed up with the loss of business that the protests have caused. But disaster will follow if the party concludes that Hong Kong welcomes its relentless encroachment, or that it should never be trusted with democracy because votes can produce embarrassing results. The vote halted the unrest. China’s leaders should seize the moment, not assume that the lull will last.

[Chas_P]

@johnu your constant tracking of whatever chas posts to point out he once said he will not post in this thread again is more annoying that anything else in this thread, which is quite an achievement. Cut it out, many of the forumers rage quit and came back and so what. Especially in a thread like this one which seems to bring out the worse of everyone -- it's even worse than the climate change thread.

 

@hrothgar I removed the post where you're attacking chas.

 

For what is worth chas has been a helpful and useful yellow on BBO for a long time. I wish I never saw what his political views are, but that wont change that online, interacting with BBOers, he has been helpful and offered his time for free for many years.

 

Thank you Diana. I have tried to do my job as a yellow as I saw it, and I never really considered my political views to be in conflict with my commitment to try to give something back to BBO for the pleasure it's given me to play online the greatest card game ever invented. This message board is just that...a message board. And I have read numerous times Rain's post from March 3, 2006.

 

"This is meant to be a place to engage in dialogue, share your views and perspectives on global events, anything that can't fit into the other forums. However, we'll still follow some basic rules:

 

1) No personal attacks. Insults are a No-No. You can have issues with someone else's opinion and attack that (in a civilised manner hopefully), but don't go after anyone personally.

 

2) No advertising, no spam.

 

3) No obscenities.

Posters who engage in hateful, vulgar, threatening, knowingly illegal and inaccurate posts may be suspended not just from forums, but also our related websites.

In general, please follow this rule of thumb (which is a good rule I've picked up from another forum): If you aren't comfortable emailing a post to your grandmother/mother/colleague, then it probably shouldn't be posted here.

 

By posting in this forum, you have also agreed to the terms stated here."

 

Obviously John and Richard feel that they are exempt from these rules. And, up to this point, apparently they are. Anyway, thank you again for your support.

[Zelandakh]

In general, please follow this rule of thumb (which is a good rule I've picked up from another forum): If you aren't comfortable emailing a post to your grandmother/mother/colleague, then it probably shouldn't be posted here.

I am not so knowledgeable about American language but I have to say I had not realised that "meathead" was a compliment over there. Is that then how you address your grandmother?

[y66]

There's an old joke that goes "How do they say f#ck you in LA? ... Trust me".

 

It seems to me that many of chas_p's posts fall into this category of coded abuse and are clearly meant to antagonize other posters. This is trolling and it is a form of abuse that should not be tolerated in the water cooler IMO.

 

The only time I am exposed to this annoying behavior is when other posters reply to chas_p's troll posts and highlight the text therein which is also annoying.

 

As far as I know, there is no way to delegate a per thread mod capability to thread starters or to block someone from posting on a thread on which they have been asked to stop trolling which would relieve official mods of the tedious chore of dealing with trolls.

 

Until we have such a capability, can people please not encourage trolls by replying to their posts?

 

For the record, I'm the guy who reported the post in which hrothgar called chas_p an azzhole. I agree with the sentiment, but this is the water cooler, not the Dubliner.

[Zelandakh]

No I'm just trying to tell you to stop doing that. I don't care why you feel compelled to do this sort of post tracking but it's not interesting and not constructive and in the end how many times do you really need to express that "chas said he wont post but he did".

I actually agree that the comments are pointless and have pointed this out myself before now. That said, I think you and Barry have to understand that in choosing Chas_P as a Yellow you are implicitly accepting certain positions that I personally think should make both of you extremely uncomfortable. In particular I have been forced to come to the conclusion that he is overtly and consciously racist, which is just not a combination of traits that I find acceptable in people that I have dealings with.

 

It is also clear that he uses obvious trolling techniques on BBF. There are many examples like the one mentioned above of dressing up abuse or racism within a false veneer of respectability, such as:

 

I'm going to leave it with you boys for awhile. I think I'll head up into the mountains and enjoy the cooler air for awhile, then maybe over to Bermuda in the early Fall for awhile to enjoy the beauty of the ocean and the friendliness of the Bermudian people. But you guys, please do keep up your good work. With your superior intellect, dogged determination, and leadership from mental giants Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and "The Squad" I am confident you will have "the motherf***er" out of the White House no later than January 14, 2025.

 

Fare thee well.

 

and

 

I understand all that. But my original question remains: How will the lives of black Americans be improved by tearing down Confederate monuments...or any other monument for that matter? I've read that The Reverend Al Sharpton considers the Jefferson Memorial "an insult to my family". If we take them all down will blacks instantaneously be free to stop murdering each other in Chicago? Will they be free to stop making babies they can't support? Will they be free to have households that include both a mother and a father? Will they be free to graduate from high school or trade school and find a decent job? Or will they just be free to start another hysterical "movement" and raise hell about that? And please note.......I am not condemning just blacks here. There are plenty of whites with the same shortcomings. I don't have much use for them either.

 

(and many, many more)

 

I find it extremely disappointed that words such as these should be given extra weight by the Yellow status, which genuinely means something within the BBO community. It is the second time that BBF has severely disappointed me regarding extreme right-wing trolls. I really hope it is the last.

[Winstonm]

In particular I have been forced to come to the conclusion that he is overtly and consciously racist, which is just not a combination of traits that I find acceptable in people that I have dealings with.

 

I spent my adult life working in careers in which I had to "go along" with these kinds of racist people. Once retired, I will not tolerate them in my life because I no longer have to.

[johnu]

No I'm just trying to tell you to stop doing that. I don't care why you feel compelled to do this sort of post tracking but it's not interesting and not constructive and in the end how many times do you really need to express that "chas said he wont post but he did".

As a moderator, maybe you can help Chas keep some semblance of dignity and suspend his account in this thread to help him keep his word to stop posting in this thread, and as a byproduct, stop him from trolling the thread. As the forum moderators frequently note in cheating and abuse cases, you can't prevent people from creating new ID's so maybe it will barely slow him down. Still, I'm guessing that your lack of action is seen as explicit approval to continue his trolling.

[diana_eva]

I actually agree that the comments are pointless and have pointed this out myself before now. That said, I think you and Barry have to understand that in choosing Chas_P as a Yellow you are implicitly accepting certain positions that I personally think should make both of you extremely uncomfortable. In particular I have been forced to come to the conclusion that he is overtly and consciously racist, which is just not a combination of traits that I find acceptable in people that I have dealings with.

 

It is also clear that he uses obvious trolling techniques on BBF (snip)

 

I find it extremely disappointed that words such as these should be given extra weight by the Yellow status, which genuinely means something within the BBO community. It is the second time that BBF has severely disappointed me regarding extreme right-wing trolls. I really hope it is the last.

 

When you present the situation as if BBO knowing that Chas was a racist troll has chosen to give him yellow status indeed this makes us look like morons.

 

However the reality is this: For some 10+ years, Chas has been a yellow in BBO. When he was given yellow status he was not interviewed on his political and racial views or other delicate stuff. He has not behaved in a discriminatory fashion with the numerous BBOers he has interacted with on BBO, and he had no incidents of racist or political or otherwise controversial nature.

 

Now, after these 10 years he posts what he really thinks in the water cooler and goes ahead to post patronizing stuff and make fun of the other posters in a Water Cooler thread that nobody is particularly proud of.

 

His online behaviour on BBO has not changed, he still doesn't shoot people and doesn't ban muslims and doesn't ask "are you white" before helping someone.

 

Should we un-yellow him for trolling in the WC, despite no reason related to his actual behaviour with people he is helping? Or should we simply ask him to cut it out with the water cooler stuff because he's a yellow and leave it at that?

[hrothgar]

As a moderator, maybe you can help Chas keep some semblance of dignity and suspend his account in this thread to help him keep his word to stop posting in this thread, and as a byproduct, stop him from trolling the thread. As the forum moderators frequently note in cheating and abuse cases, you can't prevent people from creating new ID's so maybe it will barely slow him down. Still, I'm guessing that your lack of action is seen as explicit approval to continue his trolling.

 

I will note in passing that when Chas "left" the thread last time, he moved on to sending me harassing private messages.

 

I asked Barmar and Diane to have him stop...

[Winstonm]

I thought that "witch hunt" was simply Trump hyperbole but we'be capture so many real witches I have to rethink my position. The latest witchery is Duncan Hunter magically turning his not-guilty plea to guilty for magically turning campaign contributions into his checking account balance:

 

GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter will plead guilty in federal court on Tuesday after denying for more than a year that he illegally misused campaign funds.

 

Hunter told TV station KUSI in San Diego that "Tomorrow, on Tuesday, I'm going to change my plea to guilty."

 

As for the other controversy, ignore works.

[kenberg]

When you present the situation as if BBO knowing that Chas was a racist troll has chosen to give him yellow status indeed this makes us look like morons.

 

However the reality is this: For some 10+ years, Chas has been a yellow in BBO. When he was given yellow status he was not interviewed on his political and racial views or other delicate stuff. He has not behaved in a discriminatory fashion with the numerous BBOers he has interacted with on BBO, and he had no incidents of racist or political or otherwise controversial nature.

 

Now, after these 10 years he posts what he really thinks in the water cooler and goes ahead to post patronizing stuff and make fun of the other posters in a Water Cooler thread that nobody is particularly proud of.

 

His online behaviour on BBO has not changed, he still doesn't shoot people and doesn't ban muslims and doesn't ask "are you white" before helping someone.

 

Should we un-yellow him for trolling in the WC, despite no reason related to his actual behaviour with people he is helping? Or should we simply ask him to cut it out with the water cooler stuff because he's a yellow and leave it at that?

 

It is my strong wish that no one lose a job, paid or unpaid, at BBO, or at the local grocery, based on social, political, religious or other views that she or he expresses on an opinion website.

 

I do not envy you for having to make such choices, I wish you the very best.

 

I said earlier that I thought this discussion is a trap. I later deleted that post because I didn't want even that much of a part in the discussion. But now here I am. Young people are told not to put their views up on social media, it could harm their career. I am sure that is good advice. I also regret that it is good advice.

 

 

 

You will make the choice you think best. Good luck.

[hrothgar]

 

Should we un-yellow him for trolling in the WC, despite no reason related to his actual behaviour with people he is helping?

 

Yes

 

FWIW, back in the early days of BBO Inquiry and Fred asked me if I wanted to be a Yellow.

 

I politely declined explaining that, in the long run, I was a lot more trouble that I was worth...

I think that you have the same thing here.

 

Here in the US, we have a company called Chik-Fil-A. They make quite good fast food. However, I refuse to eat their sandwiches. They're really quite good, however, the company has a political history that is highly problematic and I can't do business with them without signaling that this is acceptable to me.

 

Now, Chik-Fil-A recently announced that they were walking back a bunch of these policies. And, I'm going to sit back and watch what happens. In a couple years, I might be able to eat some of of those sandwiches once again.

[johnu]

Moving on, as Winstonm notes, another subject of a witch hunt is about to be convicted of federal crimes.

 

Rep. Duncan Hunter to abandon 'not guilty' plea in campaign finance scandal

 

After years of denials and claims he was the target of a political witch hunt, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, is scheduled to appear in federal court Tuesday morning to change his plea of not guilty to charges stemming from a sweeping campaign finance investigation.

According to the indictment, the Hunters relied for years on campaign contributions to pay routine family expenses such as dental bills, home repairs and fast-food meals. They also used the donations to pay for exotic vacations, private-school tuition, video games and plane tickets for Margaret's mother to travel to and from Poland.

 

The Hunters used more than $500 in campaign funds to fly the family's pet rabbit, Eggburt, across the country with them, Margaret Hunter admitted in her plea agreement.

 

The initial indictment also alluded to several unnamed "individuals" who appeared to have more than professional relationships with Duncan Hunter.

 

Earlier this year, as the congressman continued to deny his guilt and prosecutors disclosed more of their evidence in public court filings, it became clear that Hunter had extramarital affairs with at least five different women over many years -- and paid for them with campaign funds.

 

Though never identified publicly, three of the women were noted to be lobbyists and two others were reported to be congressional staffers.

Surely this would have been more acceptable if Hunter had set up a charitable trust and made payments from the trust B-)

 

Just for the record, IMO, when somebody claims they are the victim of a witch hunt rather than refute the individual counts in a potential indictment, they are invariably 1000% guilty. OK, that sounds like somebody else in the news whose name escapes me who constantly complains to be the innocent victim of multiple witch hunts.

[Zelandakh]

Just for the record, IMO, when somebody claims they are the victim of a witch hunt rather than refute the individual counts in a potential indictment, they are invariably 1000% guilty. OK, that sounds like somebody else in the news whose name escapes me who constantly complains to be the innocent victim of multiple witch hunts.

Hillary perhaps? Sorry John but you are being much too general here. I agree absolutely with the general legal principle that if you cannot attack the case you attack the process. But that is different from lumping in all of those that declare a witch hunt as being guilty. People do so for many reasons, not the least of which is that they really are the target of a political investigation. Such investigations are commonplace in corrupt countries such as Russia, Ukraine and, increasingly, the USA.

[Zelandakh]

Should we un-yellow him for trolling in the WC, despite no reason related to his actual behaviour with people he is helping? Or should we simply ask him to cut it out with the water cooler stuff because he's a yellow and leave it at that?

That is a decision only you and the other managers of BBO can make Diana. What I am saying is that the posts of a Yellow carry additional weight on BBF and that there is an implicit acceptance of those views in having that status.

 

Now the truth is that almost all organisations with a certain number of workers have at least one employee that could be described in some way as undesirable. That is particularly problematic for companies that rely on volunteers. In the end, every company has to decide for itself where it draws the line of acceptability. For most that comes down primarily to economic considerations rather than moral ones. If it were me in charge of BBO I would have a social media policy in place for all workers, including volunteers, and stick to that. A warning early on, when Chas_P first started making overtly racist and trolling posts, would probably have taken care of the situation or, if not, at least put you in a firmer position at this point to make the decision.

 

After a warning, the explicitly racist post I quoted from the "confederate statues" thread would be an obvious stripping of Yellow status. When the previous content has been tolerated, giving the impression that BBO management do not care about racist posts, it is much more difficult. I think at that point the proper response from management should have been to comment publicly that racism from staff is unacceptable and that a warning had been issued. It would have been a clear message. Issuing a warning now carries a different message, that racist posts are acceptable until another poster makes such a fuss that it becomes an issue. That would be a success for John's posting strategy that I think is also inappropriate.

 

Finally, you stated that "he has not behaved in a discriminatory fashion" but I question whether that can really be discerned. You surely were not monitoring his activities throughout those 10 years. Can you really be certain that he provided the same level of support to Americans by the name of "Ling" or "Sadid" as to "Mary" and "Chuck"? If I were a BBF reader called Mohammed I would probably be most reluctant to contact Chas_P and would wait and message someone else instead. People who live with prejudice all of their lives know that it is usually easier to work around it rather than fight it head on.

 

The bottom line here is that you have dug this position for yourselves from the previous actions. The line between racist-inspired policies and explicit racism is one that even professional politicians sometimes struggle to navigate so I absolutely understand a cautious approach from BBF moderators in this area. Just because the majority of posters are liberal does not mean that conservative voices should not be heard. That said, when staff cross the line I think you need to be willing to take action to make sure that the BBO brand image is not damaged. Where to draw that line, and whether to use the same line for Yellows as for normal users, is a matter of management strategy. You have to decide now which side of the line Chas_P falls and what the reaction is for BBF.

[diana_eva]

That is a decision only you and the other managers of BBO can make Diana. What I am saying is that the posts of a Yellow carry additional weight on BBF and that there is an implicit acceptance of those views in having that status.

 

Now the truth is that almost all organisations with a certain number of workers have at least one employee that could be described in some way as undesirable. That is particularly problematic for companies that rely on volunteers. In the end, every company has to decide for itself where it draws the line of acceptability. For most that comes down primarily to economic considerations rather than moral ones. If it were me in charge of BBO I would have a social media policy in place for all workers, including volunteers, and stick to that. A warning early on, when Chas_P first started making overtly racist and trolling posts, would probably have taken care of the situation or, if not, at least put you in a firmer position at this point to make the decision.

 

After a warning, the explicitly racist post I quoted from the "confederate statues" thread would be an obvious stripping of Yellow status. When the previous content has been tolerated, giving the impression that BBO management do not care about racist posts, it is much more difficult. I think at that point the proper response from management should have been to comment publicly that racism from staff is unacceptable and that a warning had been issued. It would have been a clear message. Issuing a warning now carries a different message, that racist posts are acceptable until another poster makes such a fuss that it becomes an issue. That would be a success for John's posting strategy that I think is also inappropriate.

 

Finally, you stated that "he has not behaved in a discriminatory fashion" but I question whether that can really be discerned. You surely were not monitoring his activities throughout those 10 years. Can you really be certain that he provided the same level of support to Americans by the name of "Ling" or "Sadid" as to "Mary" and "Chuck"? If I were a BBF reader called Mohammed I would probably be most reluctant to contact Chas_P and would wait and message someone else instead. People who live with prejudice all of their lives know that it is usually easier to work around it rather than fight it head on.

 

The bottom line here is that you have dug this position for yourselves from the previous actions. The line between racist-inspired policies and explicit racism is one that even professional politicians sometimes struggle to navigate so I absolutely understand a cautious approach from BBF moderators in this area. Just because the majority of posters are liberal does not mean that conservative voices should not be heard. That said, when staff cross the line I think you need to be willing to take action to make sure that the BBO brand image is not damaged. Where to draw that line, and whether to use the same line for Yellows as for normal users, is a matter of management strategy. You have to decide now which side of the line Chas_P falls and what the reaction is for BBF.

 

True, and yellows are held at much higher standards normally. We just haven't followed closely what goes on in the Water Cooler. Not too late to remind yellows to be careful what they post. But in the end this is just the water cooler. If any of this happened over at the bridge forums then yes there would be immediate consequences.Either the water cooler is not serious and anything goes, or it is serious and we start doing active moderation and then probably 90% of the threads would be completely gone (or the entire WC forum is shut down). It can't be both ways IMO.

[y66]

From Trump, Obama and their battle with the ‘blob’ by Gideon Rachman at FT:

 

Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.

 

The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style, and the similarities are impressive.

 

Both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have sought to disengage the US from the Middle East — a policy that has caused much tut-tutting in the Washington establishment, the group derisively labelled “the blob” in the Obama White House. As they pulled back from the Middle East, both presidents focused on Asia instead. Mr Obama strove to make a “pivot” to Asia the signature foreign-policy of his period in office. And Mr Trump has also made his two biggest foreign policy plays in Asia — through a trade war with China and nuclear talks with North Korea. Increasing suspicion of China and growing concern about the Korean nuclear programme were also themes of the late Obama years.

 

The two presidents have both had to appeal to an electorate that is profoundly war-weary. As a result, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump tried to cut back on America’s global military commitments in ways that have alarmed not just the blob, but America’s allies too.

 

That concern underpins the uneasy atmosphere as the Nato alliance gathers for a summit in the UK this week. Mr Trump’s vocal discontent with Nato is often portrayed as a stark departure from the American norm. But it was actually Mr Obama’s defence secretary, Robert Gates, who warned in 2011 that the future of the alliance would be “dismal” if Europeans continued to rely on the Americans for their security.

 

The similarities between the two presidents’ instincts has become clearer since Mr Trump sacked the bellicose John Bolton as his national security adviser in September. The crucial disagreements between Mr Trump and Mr Bolton concerned the president’s eagerness to pursue negotiations with Iran, North Korea and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The hawkish Mr Bolton was appalled. But Mr Trump is determined to press ahead. The result is that, after his warlike “fire and fury” phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.

 

Foreign policy caution inevitably leads to clashes with the blob — Mr Obama was attacked for “weakness” and Mr Trump has been lambasted for “isolationism”. The debate over Afghanistan illustrates the point. Both Mr Obama and Mr Trump came to office very sceptical of the case for continued military involvement. Both presidents were then persuaded to send more troops — only to start pulling them out again, later in their presidencies.

 

The story of two cancelled air strikes underlines their joint caution. Mr Obama’s last-minute decision in 2013 to cancel a bombing raid on Syria, intended to punish President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, was widely denounced by the Washington establishment. When Mr Trump ordered some air strikes on Assad regime targets in 2018, in response to another chemical attack, he got bipartisan praise in Washington for correcting Mr Obama’s “error”.

 

But these raids were just one-off gestures that did nothing to change the trajectory of the war in Syria. More recently, Mr Trump also made a last-minute decision to ignore his advisers and cancel an air strike, this time on Iran, after balking at the likely level of casualties.

 

Mr Trump’s reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force. The fact that Mr Trump and Mr Obama arrived at similar policies of pullback from the Middle East is crucial — given that the region has long dominated US foreign policy.

 

On other issues, however, there are important differences between the two presidents. Mr Obama believed in the importance of international agreements, while Mr Trump is highly sceptical of them. He has pulled the US out of the Paris climate treaty and a host of other international accords.

 

The Trump administration’s ardent protectionism also represents a break not just with Mr Obama, but with every other US presidency since 1945. However, Mr Trump seems to be in tune with the spirit of the times. The leading candidates for the Democratic nomination are now also embracing protectionism and a more hostile attitude to China.

 

This bipartisan embrace of protectionism is the economic equivalent of the Obama-Trump convergence on pulling back from the Middle East. Both policies are products of a declining confidence in America’s ability to emerge triumphant in economic or military competition with foreign rivals. The result is the adoption of more defensive and inward-looking policies.

 

Since the Trump and Obama camps revile each other, it remains a political and psychological necessity for both sides to ignore any convergence between their foreign policies. But when historians look back at the two presidencies, they will surely notice the underlying continuities. In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America’s global commitments — and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.

[y66]

From David Enrich at NYT:

 

A federal appeals court said Tuesday that Deutsche Bank must turn over detailed documents about President Trump’s finances to two congressional committees, a ruling that is almost certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

 

The decision was a victory for House Democrats as they investigate Mr. Trump and his businesses. It means that extensive information about Mr. Trump’s personal and business finances — which the president has spent years fighting to keep secret — has moved a step closer to becoming public.

 

Democratic-controlled congressional committees issued subpoenas to two banks — Deutsche Bank, long Mr. Trump’s biggest lender, and Capital One — this year for financial records related to the president, his companies and his family. Mr. Trump sued the banks to block them from complying.

 

Mr. Trump’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The court’s ruling gave Mr. Trump seven days to appeal the decision.

[y66]

From Ivan Kratsev at NYT:

 

Mr. Krastev is a contributing opinion writer, the chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the author, most recently, of “The Light That Failed: A Reckoning,” with Stephen Holmes.

 

VIENNA — In 1991, I arrived in Detroit for my first-ever visit to the United States. My hosts, from the now-defunct United States Information Agency, were determined to show me and the other Bulgarians in my group not only the American dream but also America’s underbelly. Before we could tour the city, we received instructions on how to comport ourselves in supposedly dangerous places. Our American hosts were clear that if we didn’t want to become victims, we shouldn’t behave like one. Walking in the middle of the street and looking around nervously in the hope of spotting a police officer would only increase the likelihood of getting mugged. Keep your bearings, they stressed.

 

Ever since President Trump’s election in 2016, we Europeans have been following that same advice when it comes to international politics. We are preoccupied with not allowing ourselves to look like a victim, in the hope that this will prevent us from being mugged in a world abandoned by its once-trusted sheriff.

 

As Mr. Trump has insulted international institutions and abandoned allies from Syria to the Korean Peninsula, policymakers on this side of the Atlantic have found themselves trying to walk a fine line: On the one hand, they want to hedge against Washington turning its back on Europe; on the other, they want to ensure that their hedging doesn’t push the Trump administration even farther away.

 

Consequently, European policies toward the United States have been oscillating between grandstanding about our ability to do everything on our own and panicked pretending that everything is as it used to be. See, for example, when President Emmanuel Macron of France recently proclaimed that NATO was experiencing “brain death” and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany quickly responded by insisting that “NATO remains vital to our security.”

 

As the leaders of NATO countries meet this week in London, much attention will focus on the disagreements between Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel. But beneath the surface, a new European consensus on trans-Atlantic relations is emerging and it represents a huge change. Until recently, most European leaders’ hopes were bound up with the outcome of America’s presidential elections. If Mr. Trump were to lose in 2020, they believed, the world would somehow return to normalcy.

 

All of that has changed. While Trump-friendly governments in Europe, like Poland’s and Hungary’s, still follow the polls and cross their fingers that Mr. Trump will get four more years in office, European liberals are giving up hope. It is not that they are no longer passionate about American politics. On the contrary, they religiously follow Congress’s impeachment hearings and pray for Mr. Trump’s defeat. But they have finally started to realize that a proper European Union foreign policy cannot be based on who is in the White House.

 

What explains this shift? It is plausible that European liberals are unconvinced by the foreign policy visions of Democratic hopefuls and detect isolationist tendencies in the party as well. Europeans are still struggling to understand how it was that Barack Obama — probably the most European-minded American president and one most loved by Europeans — was also the one least interested in Europe. (At least until Mr. Trump came along.)

 

Europeans are also scared by the prospect of a Cold War-style clash between the United States and China. A recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that in conflicts between the United States and China, a majority of European voters want to remain neutral, finding a middle way between the superpowers. There’s good reason for this: Europe remains economically tied to China in ways that Washington doesn’t seem to appreciate, as evidenced by the recent spat over the Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s plans to build 5G networks across the Continent.

 

But putting that aside, I believe there is a more fundamental change: European liberals have come to understand that American democracy no longer produces a consensual politics with a predictable foreign policy. The change of the president means not only a new figure in the White House but also, in fact, a new regime. Were the Democrats to triumph in 2020 and a Europe-friendly president to take the helm, there is no guarantee that in 2024 Americans will not elect a president who, like Mr. Trump, will see the European Union as an enemy and will actively try to destabilize relations with Europe.

 

The self-destruction of the American foreign policy consensus was powerfully demonstrated not only during the recent impeachment hearings, which have seen the politicization of policy toward Ukraine, but also by the fact that the specter of Russian subversion did not provoke a bipartisan allergic reaction. When Trump voters were told that President Vladimir Putin of Russia supported their candidate, they started admiring Mr. Putin rather than abandoning Mr. Trump.

 

For the past 70 years, Europeans have known that no matter who occupies the White House, America’s foreign policy and strategic priorities will be consistent. Today, all bets are off. Although most European leaders were appalled by Mr. Macron’s derisive comments about NATO and the United States, many still agree with him that Europe needs more foreign policy independence. They want Europe to develop its own technological capabilities and to develop the capacity for military operations outside of NATO.

 

Could this week’s NATO summit change Europe’s current state of mind when it comes to the future of trans-Atlantic relations? It is easier to hope for than to bet on. In the aftermath of the Cold War, Vice President Dan Quayle promised Europeans that “the future will be better tomorrow.” He was wrong. And Europe’s leaders are coming to realize that the future was actually better yesterday.