Nixon also illegally scuttled a peace treaty in Vietnam during the '68 election in a similar maneuver. But you’d need a functional non-GOP party to hold the GOP accountable and I don’t think any of us will see that in our lifetimes, assuming everyone here was born 1968 or later.
Nixon extended the Vietnam war, because he didn’t want it to end before the election.
My first thought also, and I strongly recommend Ken Burns’ Vietnam War doco to those who haven’t seen it - that’s where I first learned of Nixon’s unforgivable treason (about this particular topic… not to mention his other treasons).
See also Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by HST.
Democrats let it happen and let it slide after the fact. The GOP is criminal. The Democrats are just lazy and weak.
Unger reserved his most intense criticism for the Washington Post, which owned Newsweek at the time and, he says, had an outsize role in quietly killing the story. He’s also equally critical of Congressional Democrats, who he claims never pursued the dramatic charges as earnestly as they should have.
“Democrats were lap dogs,” Unger said
Damn, nothing has changed
Democrats serve the rich class. They’re a red herring to make us believe that we are a democracy
And this is why the lesser evil is still evil.
When the majority of our voting public just chose the GREATER evil in all three branches of government, the lesser evil is still significant harm reduction.
And if the lesser evil had won all three branches of the federal government, maybe we’d instead be talking about how the voters sent a signal that the greater evil needs to tone down all the evil, and things can move in the right direction.
But nope, let’s just pull the lever on the max-evil slot machine to see whether we end up ma more in cyberpunk, nazis, or mad max!
Nothing new here. Regan was the flashpoint of the dumpster fire that is America now. Nixon was just the match. Trump is a tanker truck full of napalm.
I wouldn’t give Trump that much credit (yet), the damage done by Reagan was far greater (disregarding social/demographic, which I mostly blame the attention industry of). But we’ll see how much damage he does this time, maybe he “trumps” Reagan…
He’s speaking openly about imprisoning political opponents and even members of his own party that didn’t bend the knee. And now the Courts he packed are backing up his claims to absolute immunity.
He even said people will no longer “need to vote” after he’s done.
The best hope for America right now is an aneurysm.
Yeah definitely, it could escalate to a complete shit-show unfortunately, as they even got senate and house as well… I’m lucky currently that I’m european, not that politics is heading in the right direction, but we’re not yet at autocratic level as could happen in the USA…
Somehow its still democrats’ fault.
Then they committed treason again with Iran Contra
GOP: Oops, all treason
I’m not young and there isn’t a time in my life when the GOP wasn’t somehow treasonous
Ollie North! Ollie North! He’s a soldier! And a hero! And a novelist! And now he’s on Fox Neeeeeews!
Deplorables doing deplorable things.
It was not unprecedented. Nixon sabotaged the Vietnam War peace talks to get elected too. Don’t think that has ever been addressed very well either.
“This was genuine treason by the GOP.”
Nah…just a typical Wednesday for them.
Two things can be true
I mean - not really. It was pretty bold at the time.
Now, yes. Because nothing was ever done about it and no accountability etc.
especially given iran contra drugs for guns. The whole thing is unbelievable and the historic thing has been. shrug.
Oh, are we counting treasons again? I guess mid-century modern is actually a thing now. Good, it’s a nice aesthetic. Bell bottoms and protest, fuck yeah.
Maybe this time we can follow through, eh? We’ve seen what happens when we don’t.
I bet you the exact same is happening with Nethanyanhu and Trump.
I think you mean Putin and Trump. Netanyahu isnt at war, they’re committing genocide.
Context?
Donald Trump’s cheatsheet when he pretended he hadn’t extorted Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine
Why is media and news so important? It controls the recording of history.
When a large majority of media conglomerates being conservative, like the Sinclaire group, it makes sharing this news with Americans very difficult.
Throw in education restrictions to keep kids from learning about these events in school, you’ve got a steep uphill battle to raise awareness.
Good thing they learnt their lessions and itll never happen again. On a completely unrelated note did you know that Hamas is planning on releasing their hostages mysteriously as soon as Trump gets elected, Bibi is also planning on starting serious peace talks at the same time.
They keep doing it. And then they do other shady shit like schedule the pulling of troops out of
SyriaAfghanistan for next year because it won’t be their problem by then. 🤷♂️Did you say Afghanistan?
lmfao I had a feeling something was off when I wrote that and didn’t give it a second thought. But yes, thank you!
Luckily, your Democrat party is like “it is beneath us us to even notice such filth”.
It’s not very effective though.
yeah the real lesson is its the democrats. keep them out of office and things will be great.
I don’t see how that would help anyone either.
I would assume he is sarcastically shitting on the great many Lemmy users who, instead of blaming our fellow countrymen who actively chose the path of evil, immediately blamed democrats for not doing enough to do xyz where xyz is that user’s pet interest (Bernie, Gaza, profits, trans rights, term limits, etc).
Those Lemmy users are of course quite dumb.
A sacrifice to the elite, for the greater good of wealth concentration, the gods of greed demanded it.
The efforts of the chaos gods Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, hell even the might Cthulhu, pail in comparison to the power of Mammon!
you forget the sex one, Slipperyquim or whatever
The real story here is that Iran betrayed their people and worked with Republicans.
It’s a theocracy, I’m not sure why you would expect it to care that much. But also, the theory is that part of the deal was for weapons to be deliered to Iran. Iran’s military had been weakened badly in the revolution, Iraq was right next door with a very large military, the new Iranian government had called for the Iraqi one to be overthrown, and the two had existing border tensions that would go on become a full scale war in less than a year. Seeking weapons to re-arm when ypu expect a fight with a strong neighbour is pretty rational if you ignore the morality of all of it.
I’m not sure why you made assumptions about what I expect? I’m pointing out the failings of their government - they betray their people and work with the US whenever they can, and it never works out for them. That’s the real story as far as I’m concerned.
I said that first part specifically because you called it “the real story” - surely it’s not much of a story if nobody does anything surprising or unexpected, right?
Either way, this did work out fairly well for Iran. They held the Iraqi invasion off (even if their own counterinvasion was a dud), Reagan continued selling them arms throughout in what would go on to be called the Iran-Contra scandal, and direct American involvement was limited to protecting Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.
That’s very short term. Surely you see how getting Reagan elected lead to where Iran relations are today?
America was already officially embargoing Iran, and Iran had taken Americans hostage. I don’t think it’s very reasonable to say that this deal made relations any worse than they already were.
No, but I think it’s reasonable to say Reagan’s “War on Terrorism” lead to Bush’s “War on Terror” and Iran being declared part of the “Axis of Evil”
Then came Obama and the nuclear deal, and then came Trump and he yanked the rug out from under the nuclear deal.
Iran cooperating with the US has never really worked out in the long run.
I think that’s expecting a bit much prediction of the future from the Iranian government, isn’t it? At that point it seemed like America was far more concerned with communism than anything else, and the new Iranian government wasn’t communist. The only time America had sent troops to the western half of Asia between then and WW2 was when Lebanon requested help.
Not really. That’s generally just something anyone should expect. After all the United States China Russia etc etc etc etc have all done the same. It’s why allowing a concentration of power. Or in cases like China and Russia demanding a concentration of Power are such bad things. Power corrupts.
This didn’t really benefit Iran’s power in the long run, did it?
The actions of authoritarian governments rarely do. They’re honestly not concerned with long-term thinking or benefit. Because they don’t need to be. It does not benefit them personally to do that extra work.
“”“Authoritarian”“” governments (really, all governments) are concerned with the continuation of their authority. Iran, it seems, is so desperate to work with the US that it will try over and over again, despite always getting back-stabbed shortly after. See also: the nuclear deal. It’s short sighted and it never works, but they keep doing it. You’d think they’d learn!
The country that kills girls for not wearing a head covering? That’s the one you’re expecting to take care of it’s people?
I’d expect an enemy of the US to not work with the US whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Iran has always been willing to capitulate, even though they’re touted as America’s #1 enemy in the region.
It’s an odd relationship.
It’s an odd relationship.
That’s certainly true.
No, it’s not
But I know that trying to explain it like you were 3 would be too hard for someone posting from .ml
You’re such an independent thinker. How could I ever comprehend your incredible insights like “America’s enemies bad”?
You clearly can’t considering your constant retardposting
