In all honesty, I fear that this is somehow her strongest weakness, because I fear the prejudices too many voters may have. I also hope that her campaign won't focus on the fact that she is femal, black and asian. Because these attributes does not qualify her for the job, nor - more importantly - disqualifies her for it. I hope that the majority of the voters in the key states see this as I do it and vote for her.
Helped us outsource the human rights abuses necessary to keep the people of the global south trapped in places the US government and businesses have ruined to places far enough away that our journalists won't cover them. If the reality could break through she should be a hit with Republicans on this issue, but obviously that's pretty unlikely.
Yes, of course. Kamala Harris made El Salvador invest in crypto, corrupted Argentina's government to print money, worked with cartels to overtake local governments and police forces in Mexico, and forced Guatemala to replace their economic systems with straight bribes. Damn that Kamala Harris.
I mean, certainly the US isn’t uninvolved in fuckin up the economies and safety status of all these places that have gradually been becoming hellholes. You didn’t mention Honduras or Venezuela I noticed… yeah I mean not everything is our fault, but some is.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it was trying to pursue some kind of theory that what Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do? She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry “Hey! I need you to stop stealing resources and destabilizing a nearby part of the world that’s not strong enough to prevent it! That is NOT COOL!” and they’re just gonna think it’s funny and keep doing it.
Resource curse is a MF. When your government is no longer reliant on its people to fund its political class, all sorts of short/medium term chaos ensues.
This isn’t to say that the US doesn’t have some responsibility in cases, just that the situations are incredibly complex annd it’s easy to scapegoat the bogeyman for all of your woes.
Sure is strange how that resource curse seems to mainly happen in countries with a history of colonization and having their natural resources exploited by foreign political classes
Russia was a colonial power, then it found oil.
There are also some justifiable fears that Australia is becoming a vassal state to China. I suppose one could argue that Australia was a colony (but I’d argue that the US was one too).
Just saying, it can happen to any country.
There are also some justifiable fears that Australia is becoming a vassal state to China.
Excuse me? We are America's faithful little suckup.
Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it, and then scoot out of town before she has to witness those enforcers torturing and extorting and working with criminal gangs and etc.
To be fair to Harris and the Biden administration, this has more or less been US policy for a very long time
She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry
FFS, I so wish more people had more than like a high school level understanding of our government - she's going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns (or maybe cover payroll expenses and things like that). Or, if she gets concerned about reports of human rights abuses or corruption or whatever, she can withhold that money and those materials (but we never do that, whether it's Latin America or Israel or the Memphis Police Department, because nine times out of ten when organizations like those do bad things Americans never hear about them).
The power of the executive branch has only been expanding since Newt broke Congress in the 90s and W got to just keep playing the War on Terror card over and over in the early 00s, but we've got people out here running around acting like it's a totally ceremonial office because nobody in the media or anywhere else wants to do the hard work of explaining how the Byzantine nonsense works and why we always have such an easy time throwing millions of dollars at guns and guards.
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it
he's going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns
Do you have citations about this stuff? If you wanna replace my flip high school understanding of how the VP can (and has been, under Biden) impacting foreign policy with something more factually based, I'm down for that idea.
e; Like I said, it's Byzantine nonsense that nobody with the knowledge to speak to wants to, but a few other sources that start to get at what I'm talking about
"Northern Triangle: DOD and State Need Improved Policies to Address Equipment Misuse" (arc) is a recent report from a federal agency talking about some of the military aid executive branch agencies are handing out to those countries (and how it seems to be frequently getting misused, but it's hard to say how frequently because there's usually no policies on what exactly constitutes misuse or who to report it to)
U.S. military assistance often goes by different names, depending on the legal authorities an activity falls under and which department or agency is overseeing or implementing it. These terms include security assistance, security sector assistance, security cooperation, and security force assistance, as well as more niche programs and terms such as security sector governance and defense institutional capacity building.
The Department of Defense commonly uses the term security cooperation while the Department of State uses security assistance. In practice, there is a lot of overlap in roles and responsibilities, with most congressionally allocated funding falling under the Department of State’s legal authorities but executed by the Department of Defense.
A large and unwieldy policy and legal bureaucracy—commonly referred to as the security cooperation or security assistance enterprise—has emerged to oversee, regulate, and execute U.S. military assistance. This entangled web of authorities, permissions, and funding streams makes military assistance incredibly difficult to execute effectively, track transparently, and evaluate.
Awesome; I'll check it out. I'm not saying I necessarily agree ahead of time, but you're not wrong that I have no real idea about it beyond some stereotype guessing.
Thank you, that's more than reasonable
Also, I added a few more sources
And all in the last four years.
Yes, of course, the United States has definitely never propped up any right wing death squads in Latin America, and it doesn't send their highly corrupted police forces tens of millions of dollars in military aid and then turn a blind eye when the gang members those forces employ extort and abuse and murder people, we've always been so committed to human rights down there /s
Didn't start with Kamala, but she sure didn't change shit about it
Interesting take, what’s your current thoughts on the Venezuelan elections?
Haven't read up on that because I'm a bit busy staying on top of my own country's election, but to cut to what you're really asking about - the US is certainly not the only government violating human rights in the area and the Venezuelan people deserve better than what Chavez and Maduro have delivered to them, imo
I agree with your sentiment, but I’m concerned that they’re putting all of their “faith” in a far right candidate. They’ve made her a cult of personality.
Yeah, there are a ton of people on this instance who really don't want to accept the US governments complicity in human rights abuses and the monstrousness of the immigration policies pursued by both sides, and plenty of propaganda to help them drown all that uncomfortable stuff out
Any source to back that up?
"Northern Triangle: DOD and State Need Improved Policies to Address Equipment Misuse" (arc) is a recent report from a federal agency talking about some of the military aid executive branch agencies are handing out to those countries (and how it seems to be frequently getting misused, but it's hard to say how frequently because there's usually no policies on what exactly constitutes misuse or who to report it to)
This whole book but especially chapter 1 talks about how the DHS, State Department, and Defense Department supply and train police forces in Honduras El Salvador and Columbia which have numerous reports of human rights abuses against them - chapter one of this book covers a ton of this in the northern triangle area of South America specifically - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672038/soldiers-and-kings-by-jason-de-leon/
Thanks for the links!
In the first report (the one from the GAO), it says that the DOD provided equipment to countries between 2018 and 2021 and that those countries used it to intimidate diplomats from the US, and more generally that the equipment was not used as intended. The report makes 5 recommendations to the defense secretary, 3 of which currently in the way of being applied by the DOD.
The second reference, if I understand it correctly, tries to analyze the efficiency of US military aid, and states that even though this aid might not be as efficient as we think, is still useful to the president of the US as some kind of PR tool - it gives the impression the US is doing something.
The last reference is a book on Amazon that I can't read nor browse.
I agree with you that the United States' policy record with regards to South American countries is awful in many ways and has been for at least 50 years. But I don't see how the articles you cited are related to Kamala Harris immigration record. Furthermore I don't see how they are related to her job as a vice president or as a senator.
In the first report (the one from the GAO), it says that the DOD provided equipment to countries between 2018 and 2021
The report makes 5 recommendations to the defense secretary, 3 of which
The DOD agreed were a good idea, there's no indication they actually followed them. The remaining two they straight up refused.
The second reference, if I understand it correctly, tries to analyze the efficiency of US military aid
That's something it mentions in passing, but it mainly focuses on how Presidents like military aid schemes because a) they have a ton of control over how the money Congress gives them for these things is actually spent (i.e. they can point out human rights abuses by the government Congress wants to aid or other foreign policy considerations and pause the spending if they care to do so) b) it's an incredibly obscure and bureaucratic system of funds and equipment inventories and inter-agency task forces and such that's difficult for journalists to follow and most Americans won't care about anyway most of the time
The last reference is a book on Amazon that I can't read nor browse.
Unfortunately I'm not a skilled enough pirate to have a good answer for that problem, but maybe find a copy through a library or something. It's a MacArthur genius grant receiving anthropologist's years long study of migrants and guides where he interviews a ton of them and immigration enforcers in all the different countries and comes across a bunch of different stories of human rights abuses carried out by Mexican and Central American authorities.
Well, she was born female, black, AND Asian.
It's her cardinal sin. /s
In all honesty, I fear that this is somehow her strongest weakness, because I fear the prejudices too many voters may have. I also hope that her campaign won't focus on the fact that she is femal, black and asian. Because these attributes does not qualify her for the job, nor - more importantly - disqualifies her for it. I hope that the majority of the voters in the key states see this as I do it and vote for her.
Article explaining it all from 2021:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/25/1009939218/harris-is-visiting-the-southern-border-after-trying-to-keep-the-focus-away-from-
Helped us outsource the human rights abuses necessary to keep the people of the global south trapped in places the US government and businesses have ruined to places far enough away that our journalists won't cover them. If the reality could break through she should be a hit with Republicans on this issue, but obviously that's pretty unlikely.
Yes, of course. Kamala Harris made El Salvador invest in crypto, corrupted Argentina's government to print money, worked with cartels to overtake local governments and police forces in Mexico, and forced Guatemala to replace their economic systems with straight bribes. Damn that Kamala Harris.
I mean, certainly the US isn’t uninvolved in fuckin up the economies and safety status of all these places that have gradually been becoming hellholes. You didn’t mention Honduras or Venezuela I noticed… yeah I mean not everything is our fault, but some is.
To the Biden administration’s credit, it was trying to pursue some kind of theory that what Harris was gonna be in charge of was addressing the root causes of this huge surge in immigration from the South. But even if we posit that she’s making a sincere effort in that regard (which, okay fine, I am fine with positing), what’s she gonna do? She’s gonna show up in her little Vice President cape and order the whole of US government and industry “Hey! I need you to stop stealing resources and destabilizing a nearby part of the world that’s not strong enough to prevent it! That is NOT COOL!” and they’re just gonna think it’s funny and keep doing it.
Resource curse is a MF. When your government is no longer reliant on its people to fund its political class, all sorts of short/medium term chaos ensues.
This isn’t to say that the US doesn’t have some responsibility in cases, just that the situations are incredibly complex annd it’s easy to scapegoat the bogeyman for all of your woes.
Sure is strange how that resource curse seems to mainly happen in countries with a history of colonization and having their natural resources exploited by foreign political classes
Russia was a colonial power, then it found oil.
There are also some justifiable fears that Australia is becoming a vassal state to China. I suppose one could argue that Australia was a colony (but I’d argue that the US was one too).
Just saying, it can happen to any country.
Excuse me? We are America's faithful little suckup.
In practice, hold closed door meetings with the police enforcers and tell them to be more comprehensive in their enforcement before setting them up with drones and computers and guns needed to do it, and then scoot out of town before she has to witness those enforcers torturing and extorting and working with criminal gangs and etc.
To be fair to Harris and the Biden administration, this has more or less been US policy for a very long time
FFS, I so wish more people had more than like a high school level understanding of our government - she's going to tap into funds created by Congress for general purposes and placed under the administration of the executive branch to give grants or directly purchase computers and drones and guns (or maybe cover payroll expenses and things like that). Or, if she gets concerned about reports of human rights abuses or corruption or whatever, she can withhold that money and those materials (but we never do that, whether it's Latin America or Israel or the Memphis Police Department, because nine times out of ten when organizations like those do bad things Americans never hear about them).
The power of the executive branch has only been expanding since Newt broke Congress in the 90s and W got to just keep playing the War on Terror card over and over in the early 00s, but we've got people out here running around acting like it's a totally ceremonial office because nobody in the media or anywhere else wants to do the hard work of explaining how the Byzantine nonsense works and why we always have such an easy time throwing millions of dollars at guns and guards.
Do you have citations about this stuff? If you wanna replace my flip high school understanding of how the VP can (and has been, under Biden) impacting foreign policy with something more factually based, I'm down for that idea.
Off the top of my head, chapter one of this book covers a ton of this in the northern triangle area of South America specifically - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/672038/soldiers-and-kings-by-jason-de-leon/
e; Like I said, it's Byzantine nonsense that nobody with the knowledge to speak to wants to, but a few other sources that start to get at what I'm talking about
Awesome; I'll check it out. I'm not saying I necessarily agree ahead of time, but you're not wrong that I have no real idea about it beyond some stereotype guessing.
Thank you, that's more than reasonable
Also, I added a few more sources
And all in the last four years.
Yes, of course, the United States has definitely never propped up any right wing death squads in Latin America, and it doesn't send their highly corrupted police forces tens of millions of dollars in military aid and then turn a blind eye when the gang members those forces employ extort and abuse and murder people, we've always been so committed to human rights down there /s
Didn't start with Kamala, but she sure didn't change shit about it
Interesting take, what’s your current thoughts on the Venezuelan elections?
Haven't read up on that because I'm a bit busy staying on top of my own country's election, but to cut to what you're really asking about - the US is certainly not the only government violating human rights in the area and the Venezuelan people deserve better than what Chavez and Maduro have delivered to them, imo
I agree with your sentiment, but I’m concerned that they’re putting all of their “faith” in a far right candidate. They’ve made her a cult of personality.
Brain-worm infestation going on here.
Yeah, there are a ton of people on this instance who really don't want to accept the US governments complicity in human rights abuses and the monstrousness of the immigration policies pursued by both sides, and plenty of propaganda to help them drown all that uncomfortable stuff out
Any source to back that up?
Thanks for the links!
In the first report (the one from the GAO), it says that the DOD provided equipment to countries between 2018 and 2021 and that those countries used it to intimidate diplomats from the US, and more generally that the equipment was not used as intended. The report makes 5 recommendations to the defense secretary, 3 of which currently in the way of being applied by the DOD.
The second reference, if I understand it correctly, tries to analyze the efficiency of US military aid, and states that even though this aid might not be as efficient as we think, is still useful to the president of the US as some kind of PR tool - it gives the impression the US is doing something. The last reference is a book on Amazon that I can't read nor browse.
I agree with you that the United States' policy record with regards to South American countries is awful in many ways and has been for at least 50 years. But I don't see how the articles you cited are related to Kamala Harris immigration record. Furthermore I don't see how they are related to her job as a vice president or as a senator.
Letter from a lawmaker in the fall of 2022 complaining about another transfer of military equipment and pointing out that these problems haven't been addressed - https://web.archive.org/web/20221111005914/https://torres.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-torres-demands-action-secretaries-austin-blinken-following-continued
The DOD agreed were a good idea, there's no indication they actually followed them. The remaining two they straight up refused.
That's something it mentions in passing, but it mainly focuses on how Presidents like military aid schemes because a) they have a ton of control over how the money Congress gives them for these things is actually spent (i.e. they can point out human rights abuses by the government Congress wants to aid or other foreign policy considerations and pause the spending if they care to do so) b) it's an incredibly obscure and bureaucratic system of funds and equipment inventories and inter-agency task forces and such that's difficult for journalists to follow and most Americans won't care about anyway most of the time
Unfortunately I'm not a skilled enough pirate to have a good answer for that problem, but maybe find a copy through a library or something. It's a MacArthur genius grant receiving anthropologist's years long study of migrants and guides where he interviews a ton of them and immigration enforcers in all the different countries and comes across a bunch of different stories of human rights abuses carried out by Mexican and Central American authorities.
A simple "no" would have sufficed.