Nobel Peace Prize for Jimmy Carter

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

When one of those presidents is being celebrated as if he were Gandhi, it has to be done, though.

leftists who consider "hypocrisy" a war crime = dud.

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

Carter was also dealing with Brezhnev not Dr. Gorbz

Morbs, do you have anything constructive to say about politics?

or JellyNY

is Gandhi responsible for any deaths, morbs?

Morbs, do you have anything constructive to say about politics?

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.

I wouldn't say so much "constructive" as "facile".

Oh sure, it's that - but what do we benefit from pretending that stuff didn't happen?

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?

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?

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.

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

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?

...

Do you have a response to my question that isn't a specious ad hominem?

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.

gandhi was easily a much bigger homophobe than carter but i guess that doesnt bother morbzy

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.

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.

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".

I still love this guy! He gives me hope for this world and the human race and not too many people do that.

c'mon Dan, "everyone."

Carter's been OK as an ex-president.

we should have a poll

do you think morbz politics posts are

o tedious & pointless
o changing the world

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.

HOLLA AT ME MAUREEN DOWD

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.

I have no idea who that is, btw /scottish

I have Google Alert set for "ILXor changes world"

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.

I'm with Abbot on this one

Yeah, I like him!

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

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.

I think this is completely OTM.

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

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.

to forgive is divine

You have to ask for forgiveness...

leadership is for assholes

backstreet's back alright

hahaha Tombot OTM (see also "people who want to become cops should not be allowed to be cops" argument)

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

catch-22 all over again

yep yep

^THAT ARGUMENT, YES^

Carter was not a liberal. The last liberal prez was LBJ.

(andwhat rong again, bigshit zurprize)

hahaha El BJ

(sorry)

is there anything wrong with people who distrust anyone who is in a position of authority?

tbf, Kai Bird (no relation) did write in the NY Times "He was tough. He was extremely intimidating" but also added "Jimmy Carter was probably the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century."

oth, he tossed Perlstein's demo tape into the trash, thus earning his wrath for all eternity.

the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century.

sad to say, but as NYers famously noted "that and a nickel will get you a ride on the Staten Island Ferry." The problem was never that he wasn't an intelligent or decent man. He needed the powerful (and very selfish) committee chairs in Congress to agree to push his agenda forward and they were fully aware of that. He wasn't an accomplished enough horse trader/briber to bring them along, because he had no stomach for the unwritten rules that Congress operated by.

Wouldn't refusing to go along with political games like bribery actually be a case for a decency (albeit not shrewdness)?

https://readingdoonesbury.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/10oct76.png

Every post about Jimmy Carter is either "he secretly taught orphans English for 47 years and never wanted credit" or "in 1979 he gave the King of Siam a shipment of rifles to massacre the Freedom Nuns"

— Don Hughes (@getfiscal) December 30, 2024

What’re some books on Jimmy Carter that you’d recommend? (I have two to suggest myself but want to see what else is out there)

Perlstein's Reaganland

Despite being written by a former aide President Carter: The White House Years avoids hagiography.

I got around to Carter's own Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid recently. I remember when it came out out during the height of the US war on terror people were apoplectic about his use of the A-word, considered totally outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. Reading it today I found it clear-eyed and worthwhile, wish I'd gotten to it earlier.

Kurt Cobain apparently liked Jimmy Carter a lot

Here's a solid obit: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter

Alfred, thanks. You should post YOUR obit.

Aw, thanks. A bit of the Cuban pov.

TIL that b/c Amy Carter couldn't go see The Ramones they came to the WH and played a 6-song set for her, her dad, and the Secret Service people.

Not at the WH

the Ramones played a 6 song sound check just for Amy Carter. April 8th, 1983. at the Agora Ballroom.

ah ok, thanks!

but yeah still very cool!

Reminds me that Our Band Could Be Your Life has a Jimmy Carter story involving the Butthole Surfers. Not sure if it's true, but it's believable.

I just want to pass a law where anyone caught doing ex-US president apologia are shamed out of their stupor or ridiculed forevermore if that fails.

Someone posted a Doonesbury cartoon above. There is an even better one from 1994 after Nixon died which pokes fun at how he went from being a fucking monster to “flawed” in retrospect after he died.

All American Presidents are pieces of shit

true and yet some of them were looking at the stars

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEOYgccRDmv/?img_index=1

Jeez go to a record store Jimmy

At least when we get eulogized at the end of our lives it will be an exercise in complete candor, not this embarrassing cavalcade of praise.

He had good aim.

Jimmy Carter says “DEREGULATION!”

Bought a good used first edition of this today--hope I didn't mistakenly buy it in duplicate.

https://postimg.cc/G9KCZ1KY/6112c1e4

If not, I'll read it for sure, although I don't know if an old-fashioned campaign book--where things like one candidate being caught in a blatant lie will be a big deal--will make much sense in 2025.

Not sure why that image didn't take:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3778707-running-for-president-1976

A lie like this?:

In April 1971, on the heels of the conviction of First Lieut., William L. Calley Jr. by a military court for the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians in the hamlet of My Lai, Mr. Carter, then the Governor of Georgia, proclaimed ‘American Fighting Men's Day’ in Georgia and described the lieutenant as a “scapegoat.” Lieutenant Calley's conviction, ‘he said, was “a blow to troop morale.”

Today, at a news conference here, Mr. Carter denied that he had ever supported Lieutenant Calley or condoned his actions. Mr. Carter, the front‐runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination, says these positions are not contradictory. He says that he “never thought Calley was anything but guilty.”

Never heard that...obviously didn't stop him from winning the nomination, but--that you're quoting it verbatim--sounds like it must have at least been a story of some prominence. Maybe he got away with it because it went back five years, I don't know. But I'm thinking of that next to a daily avalanche of lies, so many that they blur into one big steady background hum.