THE SWEATERS, MORBZ. THE SWEATERS.
― Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link
srsly, what do you ppl expect carter to say? "the vietnam war was evil and we were evil for being there"?
leftists who consider "hypocrisy" a war crime = dud.
― J.D., Monday, 29 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link
He killed many ppl as president, obv.
unlike washington, lincoln, and FDR, whose actions never led to anything worse than a few burnt scones.
― J.D., Monday, 29 October 2007 19:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Habitats for Humanity man, he's great. Just called Bush out on the terrornism. I mean, it's obvious, but not said 'nough p'raps.
― Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:14 (sixteen years ago) link
JD, I wouldn't compare WW2 and the Civil War with Carter's weapons boondoggles and sponsorship of dictatorial butchers.
― Dr Morbius, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:18 (sixteen years ago) link
how 'bout an Apatow directed biopic of Billy Carter, Morbs?
― gershy, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:03 (sixteen years ago) link
sniping at american presidents for "hypocrisy" and/or "inconsistency" and/or general "centrism" is shooting great whites in a pail with a fucking machine gun
― max, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:24 (sixteen years ago) link
When one of those presidents is being celebrated as if he were Gandhi, it has to be done, though.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 13:42 (sixteen years ago) link
More strawmen. Let's look at JC's body count, then.
Carter's projected military budgets for the early 1980s were higher than the ones Reagan presided over. Remember his plan to run MX missiles by rail around the American West?
Recall when Carter said America would not stand idly by while Nicaragua tried to set forth on a different path after the Sandinistas threw out Anastasio Somoza? Carter told them they had to retain the National Guard, which had been Somoza's elite band of US-trained psychopathic killers. The Sandinistas said no. So Carter ordered the CIA to bring up the officers and torturers running the Argentine death squads to train a force of Nicaraguan exiles in Honduras scheduled for terror missions across the border. They called them the contras.
El Salvador? In October 1979, a coup by reformist officers overthrew the repressive Romero dictatorship and pledged reforms, including land reform. But within weeks, it became clear that the reformers among the new rulers had been outmaneuvered, so they resigned en masse as the real leaders stepped up frightful repression in the countryside, killing close to 1,000 people a month. Some 10,000 were killed in 1980, most of them peasants and workers.
The Carter Administration sent millions in aid and riot equipment to the Salvadoran military, dispatched US trainers and trained Salvadoran officers in Panama. The Administration cast the conflict as one between the "extremes" of left and right, with the junta trying to steer a "moderate" course. In fact, 90 percent of the killings were carried out by the army or paramilitary death squads acting under army or government supervision. The Carter Administration continued to push this line throughout 1980, not suspending aid until the killing of four Maryknoll nuns in December. It's all coming back to you? Yes, it was the Carter Administration that restored the Khmer Rouge to military health after the Vietnamese kicked them out of power in Cambodia.
And he harked to the pain of South Korea, where students and workers were demonstrating against the military dictatorship of Chun Doo Hwan, notably in Kwangju. Carter's envoy advised the South Korean military to hit back hard, and it did on May 17, 1980, killing at least 1,000, the most horrible massacre since the Korean War. The White House instructed the local US military commander to release a South Korean force from border duty to attack the demonstrators, which they did with terrible brutality.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Cockburn_Carter.htm
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 13:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Carter was also dealing with Brezhnev not Dr. Gorbz
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:25 (sixteen years ago) link
Morbs, do you have anything constructive to say about politics?
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:37 (sixteen years ago) link
or JellyNY
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
is Gandhi responsible for any deaths, morbs?
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:46 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't you think 'people shouldn't kill people' (at least without good reason) and 'we shouldn't celebrate people responsible for large numbers of deaths' are constructive? It seems if people took those things to heart we would be a lot better off.
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I wouldn't say so much "constructive" as "facile".
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh sure, it's that - but what do we benefit from pretending that stuff didn't happen?
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
What do we benefit from pointing out every mistake made by all of our leaders with no offers of how those mistakes can be rectified?
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Basically, if you're going to ride on the "so-and-so sucks because of THIS," I want to know what your solution to "THIS" is; it's incredibly easy to bash any elected official for making horrific compromises or bad decisions because so many of them have to make them in order to have any chance of getting anything done. How do you get out of that cycle?
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Well, we don't - but all Morbius (natural contrarian as he is) did was mention things that we all know are true. And nothing can be done to rectify those mistakes, which is why taking a life is such an enormous act. The sooner humanity stops worshiping strongmen and killers, or at best forgiving them in the warm glow of hindsight, the better off we will be.
x-post well, a lot of the things carter did, especially in south america, were not things that needed solving, unless you're a right wing cold warrior.
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
all morbs did was object to people with power exercising it, deeming them unwashably stained with sin for the results that followed, no matter their intentions
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:57 (sixteen years ago) link
DO you thing they should not be held accountable, or that we have any righ to forgive them on behalf of the people that suffered?
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link
...
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Do you have a response to my question that isn't a specious ad hominem?
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Um, I don't think I ad hominined anyone, but if I did I apologise.
Anyway, I'll let the Dr talk for himself - I just find the idea that people in power should be judged by a different standard of morality to be troubling.
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:00 (sixteen years ago) link
gandhi was easily a much bigger homophobe than carter but i guess that doesnt bother morbzy
― and what, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link
I think it's really bizarre to think that someone whose decisions directly impact the well-being of millions of people should be held to the same standard of morality as someone whose decisions directly impact tens of people, particularly when the first person is regularly put into situations where, no matter what the decision is, the end result will be negative for some subset of people numbering in the millions. If your viewpoint is that no person in power should ever be held up as an example of morality, say so. If it's not, explain why bad decisions made while President outweighs multiple good decisions made in the decades following.
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link
How do you get out of that cycle?
With a different system. Democracy would be a good one, with modified isolationism as foreign policy. That's never gonna happen.I've said before I gave up on this goddamn country of idiots and selfish bastards at least 15 years ago, so no, I don't have anything "constructive" to say in that sense.
Contextualize Carter funding death squads all you want, just don't make him into some cuddly lifelong humanist.
and what, go sit on a chainsaw.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
I think Carter was kind of a failure as a President and realized it, hence spending the rest of his political career making up for it via his humanitarian stuff.
Morbs, if all you have to say is non-constructive bitterness, why even bother? The only thing you're accomplishing is getting everyone to roll their eyes and say "Shut up".
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
I still love this guy! He gives me hope for this world and the human race and not too many people do that.
― Abbott, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:19 (sixteen years ago) link
c'mon Dan, "everyone."
Carter's been OK as an ex-president.
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link
we should have a poll
do you think morbz politics posts are
o tedious & pointless o changing the world
― and what, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Don't misunderstand me Dan - I think Carter is probably a pretty good guy on the whole. And it is impossible for any leader to measure up to any standards of morality (ordinary people too, of course). But if he isn't haunted by the (perhaps necessary, though in the case of SA I don't think so) lives of the people his decisions affected he's no kind of leader. And I think we owe it to ourselves and the rest of humanity not to forget about them either. But the fact that I think that when we talk about the good things Carter did we should remember the bad in no way rules out discourse about power/morality/leadership; I think it's vital to it.
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:24 (sixteen years ago) link
HOLLA AT ME MAUREEN DOWD
― sanskrit, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:25 (sixteen years ago) link
We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. It’s time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them.
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link
I have no idea who that is, btw /scottish
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link
I have Google Alert set for "ILXor changes world"
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link
I'd be curious to know how Carter views his presidency; my suspicion would be that he thinks he did the best he could and that much of the popular assessment of his legacy is unfair. And as much as I view his presidency in a negative light, and as much as his sanctimonious ego annoys me, and as much as sometimes he seemed to be crusading for a Nobel, Jimmy has worked very hard trying to good things in the past 30 years.
― Dandy Don Weiner, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm with Abbot on this one
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, I like him!
― Abbott, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:30 (sixteen years ago) link
whenever go-nowhere idealists like morbz start talking about how important shit like "honesty" & "integrity" (usually in opposition to "playing politics" or "polling") in in a president i always point to carter's presidency, the most honest liberal in the 20th c was also the one who got the least done as president
― and what, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link
I think this is completely OTM.
― HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link
inasmuch as all presidents are bloodstained in one way or another, I wish all the ex-presidents devoted their spare time the way Carter has.
also: let Willie Nelson smoke weed on the roof of the White House + Playboy interview + sweaters = love
x-post
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:33 (sixteen years ago) link
GWB has a lot of work ahead of him if you are allowed to undo murder/war by being cuddly afterwards.
forgiving this type of behaviour in ex-presidents can only encourage incumbents.
― darraghmac, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:34 (sixteen years ago) link
to forgive is divine
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:35 (sixteen years ago) link
You have to ask for forgiveness...
― dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:36 (sixteen years ago) link
leadership is for assholes
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:36 (sixteen years ago) link
backstreet's back alright
hahaha Tombot OTM (see also "people who want to become cops should not be allowed to be cops" argument)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:37 (sixteen years ago) link
well it really is all the same, people who strongly desire positions of authority for any reasons other than a seemingly crazy sense of civic duty and self-sacrifice are completely suspect
― El Tomboto, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:41 (sixteen years ago) link
catch-22 all over again
"They're all the same" is one routine. Another routine is "the Republicans like to do it, the Democrats only do it because [some excuse]." The first routine only sounds the most cynical; the latter routine is so much worse.
― Vic Perry, Thursday, 20 November 2014 23:10 (nine years ago) link
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/08/12/jimmy-carter-i-have-cancer/
― Johnny Fever, Wednesday, 12 August 2015 21:21 (eight years ago) link
This is a man who has lived a good, long, rich and decent life, and who has been slandered in history by people not morally fit to tie his shoes.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37130/jimmy-carter-has-cancer-ronald-reagan-iran
― mookieproof, Thursday, 13 August 2015 04:19 (eight years ago) link
:(
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 13 August 2015 04:43 (eight years ago) link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/20/former-president-jimmy-carter-says-cancer-has-spread-to-his-brain/
― :wq (Leee), Thursday, 20 August 2015 18:24 (eight years ago) link
since he appears to have become a much better person since he was president, i expect he'll handle this with dignity and courage.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 20 August 2015 18:28 (eight years ago) link
hmm seems like hes fucked
― flappy bird, Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:09 (eight years ago) link
said Reagan in 1980
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 20 August 2015 20:33 (eight years ago) link
http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/every-single-movie-that-jimmy-carter-watched-at-the-whi-1728538092
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 06:06 (eight years ago) link
The Island of Allah (1956) and Herbie Rides Again (1974) - May 21, 1977
I've never heard of 'The Island of Allah' - does it make a good double feature with 'Herbie Rides Again' or did Carter just give up on the former after the first ten minutes and decide to put a Herbie film on instead?
― soref, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 08:48 (eight years ago) link
we both saw The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu in summer 1980
he did not watch Airplane! until the week after he lost to Reagan.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 19:05 (eight years ago) link
This is almost like Barry Bonds setting a new HR record only three years after McGwire--too soon, Jimmy, too soon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/politics/how-old-is-jimmy-carter.html
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:00 (five years ago) link
(But congratulations anyway.)
didn't he beat stage 3 brain cancer or something like that?
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:40 (five years ago) link
brb searching for the wormhole to the parallel universe where he runs and wins a second term next year
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:41 (five years ago) link
Compared to George Freaking Herbert Walker Bush being the longest-lived president, I'll take Jimmy Earl Malaise Carter every day of the week. But, because there is no Just God behind this kind of stuff, in a couple of decades it could be someone even more hated than Trump is.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 02:35 (five years ago) link
Carter is a bad retail politician but he is by no means stupid or unwilling to kill you. I think anger keeps him alive, I mean real biblical anger, which is a rare thing. https://t.co/e8g7b1rmGu— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 1, 2019
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 21:37 (four years ago) link
I'd say faux Nixon is really overreaching on that one. I'm pretty sure faux Nixon has never spent one minute in the same room as Carter and has no better insight into him than my Aunt Fanny.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:15 (four years ago) link
if you think Carter didn't have a killer political instinct, research his 1970 campaign for governor
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:27 (four years ago) link
There are five assertions in that tweet. I don't quarrel with that particular one since his public record upholds it. The last two are just Wile E. Coyote running past the edge of the cliff.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:40 (four years ago) link
new biography out
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/18/jonathan-alter-jimmy-carter-donald-trump-reagan-bush-clinton-obama
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 19 October 2020 21:36 (three years ago) link
Question that has interested me for a long time: when did pop/rock & roll musicians cross over into the world of celebrity and power (you can add money, too, but some had already made that leap before they made the other). Specific oddity that got me interested: none of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Bob Dylan were at Truman Capote's famous party in 1966. It's like there's a line there, and by the late '70s that line had been obliterated.
I'd never thought about it, but Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President makes it clear that his presidency was key to that transformation. (Saw it in a theatre tonight; it should play on CNN soon.) Dylan, for one, talks about his first invite to the White House, and how--as Carter quoted his songs back to him--he realized this was the first time his work had crossed that barrier.
I wouldn't say it's a great film, and--understandably--it deifies Carter, but lots of amazing footage (Dizzy Gillespie inviting Carter up to sing "Salt Peanuts") and a good time capsule of those years. Carter's inauguration--the ceremony, then the party later--is especially striking in view of present circumstances.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 01:05 (three years ago) link
Nothing to do with Carter, but I think of the shift of rock stars into celebrities being marked or heralded by some of the giant tours a little earlier: Rolling Stones in '72, Dylan/Band and also CSNY in '74. Maybe Alice Cooper fits in there somewhere too. Descriptions you read of these shows often mention movie stars and other personalities hanging around backstage or after the show, which as you say probably wasn't quite the case five or ten years earlier.
There was that strange time in rock between '74 and '77 where a lot of musicians embraced a putative sophistication that looks and feels now like an old issue of Cosmopolitan.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 01:37 (three years ago) link
Definitely the '72 Stones tour--was going to mention that. There are shots in Cocksucker Blues of Capote (and maybe Warhol) milling about backstage. In the Carter film, Jerry Brown's campaign--enlisting the Eagles and, of course, Linda Ronstadt--also had a hand in this.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:21 (three years ago) link
One annoying thing about the Carter film: along with Dicky Betts and Willie Nelson and Niles Rodgers and Trisha Yearwood and lots of people that make sense, there's five minutes of Bono. (Who might make sense too, but it's Bono.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:30 (three years ago) link
I'd say the Beatles receiving MBEs in '65 was a step in this process, and then the Stones hanging out with and being shot by royal photographer Cecil Beaton in '67 was another, plus Jagger being good friends (at least) with Princess Margaret from '67 or so.
― Josefa, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 05:01 (three years ago) link
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/howard-kaylan-storms-the-white-house-in-shell-shocked-my-life-with-the-turtles-exclusive-book-excerpt-179284/
― Boring blighters bloaters (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:35 (three years ago) link
Kennedys/Rat Pack is the beginning of this.
― scampopo (suzy), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:48 (three years ago) link
Beats Thatcher/Tarby/Cilla Black any day.
― Boring blighters bloaters (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:50 (three years ago) link
I was thinking more specifically of the rock and roll end of it, but for sure, Kennedy/Rat Pack clears the way for that. I'd say the bookends are Warhol and Dylan's orbits intersecting in '66 and Studio 54 a decade-plus later. Rod Stewart's great line from "You Were It Well" in 1972--"Madame Onassis got nothin' on you"--he's still like a kid there with his nose pressed against the window, pining for an invite into that world; five or six years later, he is that world.
(I always want to issue a personal apology when I hijack someone's thread. Sorry, Jimmy Carter--congratulations on your Nobel Peace Prize.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 16:59 (three years ago) link
Entering hospice care apparently.
― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Saturday, 18 February 2023 20:59 (one year ago) link
https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2023/statement-on-president-carters-health.html
― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Saturday, 18 February 2023 21:01 (one year ago) link
Sad news. The source here is a spook (is that ok to say?) but it was an interesting context on Carter’s continuing historic role after leaving the White House.
Thread on Jimmy Carter and 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis.In August, 1994, I was one of a small team of intelligence officers asked to brief the former President prior to his mission to Pyongyang. Carter had essentially volunteered for the task…much to Clinton’s consternation.— Frank Jannuzi ☮️ (@FrankJannuzi) February 19, 2023
― recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Sunday, 19 February 2023 03:50 (one year ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Sunday, 19 March 2023 01:36 (one year ago) link
happy 99th
― mookieproof, Sunday, 1 October 2023 13:32 (eight months ago) link
Rosalynn Carter dead.
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 19 November 2023 20:38 (six months ago) link
RIP
― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 19 November 2023 20:44 (six months ago) link