The Don's week in a nutshell

[luzribeiro]

The week ended so well. Hawaii governor David Ige tells CNN that someone "pushed the wrong button" during an employee shift change, sending out the false alert about an incoming ballistic missile...

Well, at least we know two things now. One, a button does exist after all; fortunately, it's not the one on Trump's desk. Thank goodness. Oh and two, the alert system works. Great!

By the way, the wonderful US president was playing golf at the time this happened. His excuse? That Obama had done the same during the NYC ebola outbreak. Just following the standard that's been set, you know. He works for an average of two hours a day, after all. And might be a bit busy right now fending off new allegations from porn actresses while his surrogates are occupied explaining to a quarter of the world how he didn't really mean what he said.

Naturally, Trump's being blamed for the false alarm in Hawaii. Who else.

Comments

[mikeyxw]

Naw. They know what would happen when a state employee at a state agency makes a mistake. The armed forces, the ones who would, hopefully, try to shoot down the missile and then turn Pyongyang into a bulls eye with a center of glass surrounded by concentric rings of ash and rubble, knew it was fake and didn't really react.

[abomvubuso]

Mentioning glass, reminds me of an old pseudohistorical conspiracy theory of a possible nuclear war of epic proportions in deep prehistory:

https://www.beyondsciencetv.com/2017/05/31/was-there-an-ancient-nuclear-war/

[mikeyxw]

There's a link, so it's for me. I'm going to think of Mad Max as a historical drama from now on.

[halialkers]

And then the USA would be kicked out of the UN for picking on an innocent nation that would never hurt a fly. Judging by how North Korean missiles over Hokkaido are all America's fault, anyway.

[kiaa]

Now you're going to hear the "but, but Putin does it too" argument again.

[kiaa]

Your call. ;)

[halialkers]

Well I could point to North Korea deciding on a total attempt to destroy South Korea in 1950 the *last* time the USA decided to foolishly remove its army there and give South Korea a light infantry army when the USSR gave North Korea tanks, bombers, and heavy artillery to conduct a full-scale combined arms war. I could point out to the reality that North Korea tried again in 1966-9 with something that failed utterly and that this is something its leaders understood enough not to try it again.

I could point out to Obama literally trying something no other US President tried only to see the armistice rescinded and that these missiles were not built because of Trump or Republicans but under a Democratic Administration foolishly believing diplomacy always works.

I could also point out the irony in appealing to Indigenous Americans as examples and that you'd expect someone who would honestly admit the USA is an Empire and yet in spite of that is NOT the one actually firing the fucking missiles at Hokkaido.

I don't expect actual evidence based on what literally happens on a regular basis with the Juche Corpse Kingdom to make that much impression however.

And I'd also note that North Korea really went downhill because the USSR collapsed and its misery reflects the same pattern as in Cuba except that the Castros abandoned the empire dreams and North Korea kept its.

[halialkers]

By amping up pressure you mean drawing a red line and failing to enforce it?

Geopolitically that's called 'walking yourself into an own goal that was easily avoidable.'

And frankly put drone bombings don't exist to the global Left at any serious level or Obama would have seen the kind of protests LBJ did in the 1960s. Did you see any of that? I sure didn't.

They sure don't to antiwar Americans, and yet every time I make that point people react like I personally insulted their mothers.

[halialkers]

Or wait, maybe amping up pressure was regular Russian bombings of US satellites done to deliberately openly provoke the USA that got a series of sternly worded letters. Yes, that'll make an impression on the people whose idea of sending a message is dropping bombs on people!

The claim that the Obama Administration was even generic US Democratic levels of pugnacious is belied by literally every other Administration before it. Bill Clinton wouldn't have let the Russians do that, nor would Shrub, nor would H. Dubya, nor would anyone else since 1945.

So......I must have missed this warlike swaggering Obama who seems to have made such an impression. Guy literally waged a real direct conflict with another nuclear state and nobody gives a damn. Nuclear armed North Korea fires missiles over Hokkaido, Trump imposes sanctions, and the USA is responsible for the missiles over Hokkaido and not the people firing them. Obama responded to Pakistanis killing American soldiers by killing Pakistanis.

Trump responds with sanctions and wretchedly written tweets probably composed between snorting lines of coke and the guy who *isn't* actually bombing the hostile people is seen as a greater danger than the one who did. Does that reflect reality or some kind of double standard?

I'd say so, yes. But what it does not reflect is the empirical deeds of the USA and North Korea in this situation. One side escalates with missiles, the other with Twitter.

[halialkers]

You would be mistaken.

Rather what I said was that when Obama literally blew up Pakistanis in an actual shooting war with a nuclear power nobody reacted like this was going to provoke a nuclear war when actual literal bombs are more likely to do so than Tweets in response to missiles.

Trump responds to missiles over Hokkaido with vulgar penis jokes and he's treated as a bigger existential threat to a point you could be forgiven for thinking the USA, not North Korea, is the one firing the missiles and threatening nuclear war with the more heavily armed state easily capable of destroying it assuming Trump can even enforce such orders and his generals would obey them, none of which is particularly clear.

It's directly relevant.

You asked how many people North Korea destroyed.

I pointed out to you these people are self-destructively stupid and blatantly so.

You claimed Obama's actual actions were more warlike than not, I said even if they were nobody reacted with the global hysterics over nuclear war to a direct war between two nuclear states. Where now, Tweets vs. Missiles is presented as an equal threat because.......I don't know why, honestly.

I hate Dorito Benito. I'm trans, I have every reason to. I also have every reason to believe that most of the concern trolling over US evil relative to North Korea isn't about Trump at all in the first place but more kneejerk impulse to proclaim the American Empire is the only state capable of initiating events and that anything that happens must be its fault because clearly nobody else would ever risk their own destruction in folly.

[halialkers]

I suppose it's 'not relevant' to note the Korean War happened, or the DMZ Conflict in 1966, or how often from 1950-2017 North Korea hostilities are initiated by North Korea with zero equivalent from Seoul or Washington.

I suppose literally pointing to North Korean actions in a North Korea thread is irrelevant because if it comes to actual evidence your statements on this have no evidence to back them, you know it, and you prefer to dismiss these words as textwalls rather than have to prove anything you say or why you say it about how the USA and Trump's tweets are causing North Korea to live-fire test missiles over Hokkaido.

Clearly when 98 out of 100 incidents of hostility between North Korea, South Korea and the USA are North Korean initiated and range from full-fledged wars to repeated shelling and capturing US ships for hostages it's anyone's responsibility but the dictators authorizing the raids in the first place.

Heaven forbid the grandchildren of the Corpse King have to own their actions. How dare people suggest that North Korea might be inflexibly hostile and in a mire of its own making for reasons where the USA is a convenient excuse but not a cause.

[halialkers]

All of the people Obama blew up in Pakistan and Yemen would certainly agree with you. In a more just world playing with a literal nuclear war danger in some ways far more real than this North Korea issue is unless we go full 1914 level 'fuck it, burn it all' would have damaged his Administration measurably. He was never interpreted as a conventional politician by supporters or opponents.

None of that alters that missiles vs. sanctions and tweets is a rather different case and the USA reacting by more sanctions the Chinese and Russians render worthless like every other Administration since 1945 for as long as we have the current SecState and SecDef in charge is treated as morally far more evil than North Korean firing the actual missiles in question.

Only one country is firing missiles here. It's not the USA. Not with North Korea and not even under the Idiot Oompa Loompa.

[mikeyxw]

Trump, the global face of America, is very easy to hate.