So first he wants to back out of Syria

[conuly]

Which, okay, our presence there has hardly helped matters, but leaving without an exit plan isn't going to be an improvement.

And then once he was told he couldn't do that, he decided to bomb the hell out of Syria.

There's some sort of logic here, I suppose, but it only makes sense on Bizarro-Earth.

A great man said something about this situation once. What was it? Oh, yes: “The President must get Congressional approval before attacking Syria-big mistake if he does not!”

Comments

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

You know, when 45 rose to power; I suffered this massive bouts of anxiety-- and now almost a year later-- I'm used to it? It's like my mind has convinced itself that it's just gonna get worse and worse, no matter what, so there's no use in being anxious.

And people are still delusional about a great many things, and I'm just shaking my head because it's what they have to tell themselves to convince themselves that they are still good people, when everyone and their neighbor knows they aren't.

Arrrgh.

[conuly]

It is amazing what we can get used to. I'm not sure if this is the indomitable human spirit, or just survival-level ennui.

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

I think it's a combination of both-- the need to survive as well as the little inkling of hope that's buried deep inside.

[alexseanchai]

I keep having massive doublethink. Like. Front brain carries on going to work and doing chores and creating art like nothing's wrong. Back brain has no mouth and must eternally scream.

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

That is like the perfect explaination for it.

It's like the voice that is fated to be silent but yet is the loudest voice in one's head.

[conuly]

Little known fact: That story gave me nightmares. So please let's never ever bring it up again!

*shudder*

But you know how it is. You can't be miserable and stressed and worried all the time. You'd absolutely snap!

[isis]

What kind of weird time zone are you in - your post is dated April 16th! Are you journaling from the future?

[conuly]

Yup!

I used to go back and edit my entries if I skipped a day, but on the whole, posting from the future has turned out to be a lot less work.

[dewline]

Distraction, yes?

[conuly]

But who's the dog here?

[sabotabby]

It's almost as if Very Smart People can't solve the problem and the walking Dunner-Kruger Effect somehow thinks he's more capable than that.

[conuly]

Well. I mean. That's what the Dunning-Kruger effect does to people.

[mab_browne]

On a lesser but related note, once upon a time the Trans Pacific Partnership was a terrible, terrible thing, very bad, but now he wants into the clubhouse to spite China. I'm no great fan of the TPP but I'm still rolling my eyes at the idea that he thinks he can rejoin a complicated trade deal just like that.

[conuly]

I'm still hoping that once the strongmen are ousted worldwide the grown-ups will look around and agree on a do-over for the past few years.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

_{Bruce! BAY!}

I'm still boggling that people believe he's great at business. Well, at snake oil. Totes tops. Very biggly.

How did comics not make hay of his appearance(s?) on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Rules are for lesser people.

(I'll be over here with Steve Rogers. Either the shield will cause a pocket or I'll take a direct hit.)

[conuly]

But sanity?

[robby]

Wasn't it a response by three nations to a Syrian chemical gas attack on civilians? No casualties, but reportedly, Assad's chemical weapons capability has been crippled.

[conuly]

Listen, Assad's been gassing civilians in this war for ages now, and I just don't see how bombing is going to help.

[rhoda_rants]

That's like the equivalent of licking all your toys after being told you have to 'share' them. That's the level of petty and childish we're talking here. Jesus fuck, we are all doomed.

[conuly]

What I don't get is how, with the way we overspend on the military, all our wars aren't literally curbstomp battles.

[alisanne]

I knew we were fucked when he won the election, and nothing that's happened so far has changed my mind.
I suppose I'm still hopeful that those gutless boobs in government will impeach him and slap him and his entire family in jail, but my cynical mind is resigned to it never happening.
At this point I'm hoping we survive his next stupid move.

[conuly]

Still holding out hope that he dies of an overdose. Dear god, he's in his freaking 70s and he's not exactly a health nut. Why won't he just die already?

[l33tminion]

This strikes me as one of those situations where there are no good solutions, but I feel much better when the leaders navigating the space of bad solution are some approximation of ethical and competent! I'm not saying Obama made the right decisions on Syria (I don't know), but I at least believe he seriously tried to make good decisions (in general), with a definition of "good" that's not far off from my own.

(And I don't think the fact that Obama made threats he didn't follow through on re Syria means those decisions were necessarily wrong. It can be a good idea to threaten even when follow-through is uncertain, it can be a good idea to hold back and "lose credibility" when other options are worse. This isn't the sort of situation where you have to lash yourself to the mast. Syria can't do much to limit the US's ability to retaliate later, and deciding to hold off in 2013 doesn't say that much about what the US will do in 2014 much less 2017.)

[conuly]

I think Obama at least thought about the issue a little. He didn't turn out as progressive as I'd hoped, but I believe he thought things through. Even Dubya, you could see that clearly somebody gave matters slightly more than five seconds of thought. At least a minute or more. It might not have been particularly good or intelligent thought, but thoughts happened in between feelings.

This isn't the sort of situation where you have to lash yourself to the mast.

Indeed. I feel a world where everybody does exactly what they (or their predecessors) threatened to do just to show that They Mean Business is not a good world for the average civilian.