Obama was unable to close Guantanamo Bay due to political opposition and legal challenges that arose after he took office, despite initially promising to shut it down within a year. By the end of his presidency, he had reduced the number of detainees but faced significant congressional restrictions that hindered further action.
Some people believe if more than x people are killed, whether the deaths are x number or 2x or x^2 doesn’t make any difference: once we reach x, it’s maximum horrible. Actions that reduce from something greatly more than x to something slightly more than x are not worth pursuing, because the deaths are still more than x, which is max horrible, so those actions don’t matter.
Other people believe that any senseless death avoided is always worthwhile, and support actions that reduce the volume of senseless death. Even if a lot of killing still happens, it’s positive to reduce it.
I can’t tell if you are in the first group, or if you really lack the context of active conflicts the US is involved in with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths that you cannot imagine anything worse than 4,000 deaths.
Mandani’s opposition has been tireless in trying to get him into making stances on wedge issues, especially on things like foreign policy, to deflect from his popular intended policies as mayor.
So recently like after months of being burned by his own party for supporting Palestinians, he made a statement that called Oct 7 a war crime. So now the job is to paint him as a secret zionist.
Which again, is not an issue for a NYC mayor. His plans to tax the rich, however, is.
If Mamdani backed down from free busses and rent freezes, then we’d have cause for concern.
Off the top of my head, he’s very pro-NYPD (which I guess is the easiest way to get the cops to vote for him) and also he straight up said he’d have Zionists in his administration and not worry about what their support for Zionism means in practical terms, so. Yeah.
I searched for his comments on the NYPD, all I could find was an “apology” that reads more as “potential new mayor, after years of criticism of the NYPD, realises that an openly antagonistic NYPD wouldn’t help his agenda for New York and says the bare minimum to placate them”. Keep in mind too, this is under a presidency that would gladly assist the NYPD in disturbing whatever Mamdani does when elected. He also mentions victims of police brutality in the quote. Hardly “very PRO-NYPD”, IMO.
In regards to the genocide in Gaza, he seems to be extremely pro-Palestine. He did recently visit some Zionist leaders in NYC. Jews are around 12% of the population of NYC, and whilst they certainly aren’t all Zionists, at lot of them undoubtedly are. Personally, I believe a good representative should represent every part of their constituency. You can’t realistically completely ignore these groups while running for a position like the mayor of NYC. Meanwhile, he has constantly throughout his life criticised Israel and expressed staunch support for the Palestinian cause.
Feel free to disagree with me on any of these points, but even then, don’t you think you might be letting perfect be the enemy of good in this case? Do you have another candidate you’d prefer?
Me too, but if his recent overtures are any sign of things to come he’s absolutely going to be Obama 2.0
Goddamn I can’t imagine anything worse than Obama 2.0!
Oh! Oh I’ll be having nightmares for months!
ffs
yeah, what could be worse than the guy who authorized 563 drone strikes that killed nearly 4000 people, including American kids. Hmm.
US counter terror air strikes double in Trump’s first year
I mean, the President before him started two wars and the one after him fumbled COVID badly, so there is that.
Don’t get me wrong, Guantanamo Bay is still open so my opinion of Obama is pretty low, but…
Some people believe if more than x people are killed, whether the deaths are x number or 2x or x^2 doesn’t make any difference: once we reach x, it’s maximum horrible. Actions that reduce from something greatly more than x to something slightly more than x are not worth pursuing, because the deaths are still more than x, which is max horrible, so those actions don’t matter.
Other people believe that any senseless death avoided is always worthwhile, and support actions that reduce the volume of senseless death. Even if a lot of killing still happens, it’s positive to reduce it.
I can’t tell if you are in the first group, or if you really lack the context of active conflicts the US is involved in with hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths that you cannot imagine anything worse than 4,000 deaths.
What could be worse? Man, i can’t think of a single thing! Obama was the awfulest human to defecate in the white house of All Time!
(for my autistic friends; i don’t really think that. I’m using hyperbole to underscore my position that Obama was not the worst person of all time.)
Care to share any specifics? I haven’t been following him too closely, like many others I’m a bit burnt out on US political news.
Mandani’s opposition has been tireless in trying to get him into making stances on wedge issues, especially on things like foreign policy, to deflect from his popular intended policies as mayor.
So recently like after months of being burned by his own party for supporting Palestinians, he made a statement that called Oct 7 a war crime. So now the job is to paint him as a secret zionist.
Which again, is not an issue for a NYC mayor. His plans to tax the rich, however, is.
If Mamdani backed down from free busses and rent freezes, then we’d have cause for concern.
Off the top of my head, he’s very pro-NYPD (which I guess is the easiest way to get the cops to vote for him) and also he straight up said he’d have Zionists in his administration and not worry about what their support for Zionism means in practical terms, so. Yeah.
I searched for his comments on the NYPD, all I could find was an “apology” that reads more as “potential new mayor, after years of criticism of the NYPD, realises that an openly antagonistic NYPD wouldn’t help his agenda for New York and says the bare minimum to placate them”. Keep in mind too, this is under a presidency that would gladly assist the NYPD in disturbing whatever Mamdani does when elected. He also mentions victims of police brutality in the quote. Hardly “very PRO-NYPD”, IMO.
In regards to the genocide in Gaza, he seems to be extremely pro-Palestine. He did recently visit some Zionist leaders in NYC. Jews are around 12% of the population of NYC, and whilst they certainly aren’t all Zionists, at lot of them undoubtedly are. Personally, I believe a good representative should represent every part of their constituency. You can’t realistically completely ignore these groups while running for a position like the mayor of NYC. Meanwhile, he has constantly throughout his life criticised Israel and expressed staunch support for the Palestinian cause.
Feel free to disagree with me on any of these points, but even then, don’t you think you might be letting perfect be the enemy of good in this case? Do you have another candidate you’d prefer?