Nobel Peace Prize for Jimmy Carter

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?

Trust but verify.

hahaha El BJ

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

(sorry)

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

totally in character, but also funny

morbs you make a pretty big deal about having given up on this country of idiots 15 years ago, a lot.

it really never stops being interesting

yeah yeah we all hate each other on the politics threads because we keep coming back to them so much that we've all become totally predictable

familiarity & contempt together at last

my politics are from Sleeper: Six months from now,we're going to be stealing Erno's nose.

that's not EMO'S

finally I can go back to my diet of chocolate cake and steak

taking politics as they are and getting involved = back-to-the world compassion (to lift from pop-buddhism, if you like). it's a grubby world, and it's bravery to NOT hold it at arms length, not the other way around.

constant above-it-all kvetching = self-aggrandizing uselessness, a fear response plain and simple. fake politics designed entirely to hog the spotlight rather than say anything about anything.

xp funny i love sleeper and i have no idea wtf you're on about

morbz if you followed the chronicles of and what you would know my props for lbj are x1000000000000000000 of that for carter (20 hour road trip this summer just to hit up the library in austin) but johnson represents everything you would hate on if he were actually running, withholding shit from the public and polling and shameless pandering and triangulating himself and working across party lines and etc etc etc - hey its kinda like voting for ppl who actually will get shit done is better than sitting around whining and waiting for a liberal fantasy candidate (or right wing fantasy candidate in the case of your now-forgotten ron paul dick-riding - what happened in the last 3 months that made you not wanna crew with white nationalists & militia dudes?)

oh, tee 'em

I can't recall Morbz ever complaining about polling

I'm well aware of LBJ's political style. If any of the current batch of slop dwellers could get his results, I'd excuse em.

I never rode Ron Paul's dick, but thx for homophobic slur.

voting for ppl who actually will get shit done

and that's exactly what Dem Hero Clinton got done, lots n lots of Reaganite SHIT

and what, i'm with you for the most part (and agree re: uselessness of idea of "purity" in politics), but i can't really let LBJ off with just a "he was a brilliantly corrupt politician who got things done" considering he launched a huge and unnecessary war in vietnam which probably fucked the country up worse than anything post-1960.

morbius gave up on america after three terms of republican preznits came to an end huh.

When the Democrat who was elected was an even worse Republican, yep.

Eisenhower and Kennedy launched or at least pre-launched the war, but obv it was part of the Cold War proxy bullshit LBJ believed in, yet people are so willing to forgive Carter for same upthread (I guess because no Americans were dying).

I have no aspirations to "purity"; I voted for Walter Mondale, and Bill Bradley vs Gore.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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/

Kennedys/Rat Pack is the beginning of this.

Beats Thatcher/Tarby/Cilla Black any day.

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.)

Entering hospice care apparently.

https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2023/statement-on-president-carters-health.html

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

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html

happy 99th

Rosalynn Carter dead.

RIP