8 ms·

If you're going to put a guy in charge who is completely unqualified and has a history of alcohol abuse you should at least make sure he's competent. It's actua

If you're going to put a guy in charge who is completely unqualified and has a history of alcohol abuse you should at least make sure he's competent. It's actually very grating to see someone operating at this highest level of authority and treating it like its beneath them. It feels like we're watching history get written by the most entitled and inept among us.

pjc50 1y ago
The entire administration is selected for loyalty. In this environment competence is a threat.
eviks 1y ago
Competence is part of qualification, so what you're asking for is not possible even in theory
sillyfluke 1y ago
What kind of tickles me is that any new poltical thriller tv series or movie that posits that matters of state in the US are conducted by serious and knowledgable people is now virtually unwatchable for me. It's virtually impossible to suspend the disbelief required to enjoy something that is so far removed from the reality of today's politicians. (The recent cringe inducing Deniro series comes to mind)
- mycatisblack 1y ago
  You should watch Civil War (2024) some time. The disbelief is shrinking on that one.
  - mnky9800n 1y ago
    I found that movie to be disgusting as it takes real footage of war horrors such as 20 days in Mariupol, suicide bombers, etc. and sanitizes that for American audiences. Using this visual style of movies like 20 days in Mariupol indicates the filmmakers watched those movies and thought that could make them buck. Then it gives you some bullshit feel good call of duty action at the end to go kill the president which is tonally different both in visual style and in the context of the narrative. And it replaces the horrors of war such as bombing maternity hospitals and watching pregnant women be dragged from the wreckage with stereotypical racist Americans. And it justifies all this because it tells the tale of some war time reporters and asks the question what if they are just adrenaline junkies which is why they do their jobs? Thereby undercutting the real value and heroism of those who report on these conflicts who are captured, tortured, and murdered (e.g., Viktoriia Roshchyna). It does nothing to connect the audience with anything that is actually happening in the world and even serves to insulate Americans from the horrors of Ukraine and elsewhere while attacking journalists. I thought that movie was disgusting.
    - decimalenough 1y ago
      ...huh? Civil War is about a group of reporters in the final days of a future civil war in America where a rather Trumpian president is about to be overthrown by rebels. It's not "replacing" anything in Ukraine because it's an entirely different story than Ukraine.
      - mnky9800n 1y ago
        I am talking about the visual language of the movie and how it takes the style of documentary films like 20 days in Mariupol (a movie about the beginning of the war in Ukraine). not the narrative.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        I am confused. What is your complaint here? That US author's stole the visual approach?
        mnky9800n 1y ago
        I don't think the approach was stolen. It is fine for artists to take styles and ideas from other works and put them in their own. My point is that I found the film to be generally an affront to the suffering of people in actual, ongoing wars. It trivialized those experiences using them as a costume so american audiences could giggle in delight at the cinema without having to worry about the trappings of an actual war. And it did so all to tell a narrative that was somewhat against war-time journalism, painting their efforts as self absorbed and self serving. Like look at the way they film the death of the Kirsten Dunst, in this hero pose with camera in hand searching for the perfect picture. Contrast that to the actual life and death of someone like Viktoriia Rushchyna who was tortured and had organs removed or Shireen Abu Akleh who was allegedly shot in the head by a sniper while wearing a press vest. I simply found the film disgusting and if people disagree with me that is fine. Of course any film about war (or perhaps any topic) could be controversial to someone. The WW2 epics starring John Wayne or Sergei Eisenstein's Alexandr Nevsky are both examples where the directors twisted every detail and used every opportunity to present a political message that the viewer may or may not agree with. My view on this is that the director of Civil War, Alex Garland, makes statements with the film that I disagree with. He seems to not see the humanity in people, at least, in my opinion. The movie never doubles down on anything, there is no deeper examination of the characters in the film, they just are until they aren't anymore. This is similar to his 2018 film Annihilation, which is essentially a retelling of J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World, and all of those characters in some way lack a humanity (although I think this works much better in this film as you discover that each character goes into the zone to find something about themselves that is missing and what defines them as human to themselves). And similar to The Beach, the novel he wrote that was turned into the movie The Beach, starring Leonardo Dicaprio about vapid westerners partying in thailand, or 28 days later, the zombie movie he wrote directed by Danny Boyle. Garland seems to see life as cheap and meaningless across the books and movies he has created. He cares more about the visual trappings of the setting he creates than the humans who live there. In the case of Civil War, I find it offensive as it uses the visual style of documentary films about ongoing wars as a costume and set dressing for his movie. And this movie comes from a culture (American) that started a war in Iraq and has done basically no introspection as to how those decisions completely changed their society into what it is today. This also influences the Civil War film. The president is blamed exclusively for all bad things across america. The entire movie is about how everything is the president's fault but lets interview him to see why.
  - sillyfluke 1y ago
    As I recall the battle lines were a bit awkwardly drawn for that one. The realism would increase if Cali and Texas were governed by the same party for some time in real life (as I recall they were allies in that movie). I would like to see someone take up the idea of Canamerimex Union in a movie for kicks -- that is, the idea of Canada, California and Mexico forming a union on the west coast (and maybe continuing down the east coast, with Canada bridging both coasts)
    - nozzlegear 1y ago
      > As I recall the battle lines were a bit awkwardly drawn for that one. The realism would increase if Cali and Texas were governed by the same party for some time in real life (as I recall they were allies in that movie). I actually liked that little detail and don't think it's too farfetched. In real life those two states are currently on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but (iirc) we don't actually know why the civil war started in the movie and it seemed careful to avoid any kind of left vs right ideology. California and Texas both have a rich history of calls for secession from the union, and both have heavyweight economies that could allow them to stand as their own countries. I think if a civil war did break out where both states disagreed with the Federal government, they'd be more likely than you think to form an alliance.
      - righthand 1y ago
        The war in the movie starts because authoritarian elected Potus Nick Offerman creates an economic division between the states which causes the states to group up geographically and ally on their divisions. California and Texas today wouldn’t pair but given enough pressure they might to ensure they remain an economic power house.
        nerdponx 1y ago
        I could imagine them seceding independently, but allying once seceded, especially if the CA secession government shifts more conservative.
      - 1y ago
- wickedsight 1y ago
  I'm currently watching 24 again and it now feels even more like fiction than it ever did.
  - mnky9800n 1y ago
    24 was a wonderful piece of American propaganda whose only goal was to make it seem like torture was okay.
    - acdha 1y ago
      Yes, it was sickening to watch a lot of people - even self-proclaimed libertarians – flip on torture during that period. There was a stark reversal from the 90s where the War Crimes Act was unanimously passed because back then anti-torture laws were thought of as affecting enemies like the Viet Cong, which lasted less than a decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Crimes_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Crimes_Act_of_1996
    - Der_Einzige 1y ago
      The jack bauer power hour is a strong memory of my childhood.
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      People who talked about how 24 and Jack Bauer showed that torture was good actually included a goddamned supreme court justice and I think the SecDef? The Bush Jr admin was openly fans of the show. Oh, and the cast were invited to have a panel at a conference for the fucking Heritage Foundation! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P52G4Kyq5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P52G4Kyq5M A look at the 24 world and it's insane violence by Jon Bois
      - mnky9800n 1y ago
        There should be a whole PhD dissertation in how 24 took over American culture and was used to justify heinous acts with some trite “the ends justify the means” hero porn on prime time. Edit: and don’t forget this show was on fox.
- pjc50 1y ago
  On the other hand, the UK Spitting Image puppet series of sketches The President's Brain is Missing holds up remarkably well, due to being about Reagan.
- ryukoposting 1y ago
  In that case, you may enjoy Veep.
  - trhway 1y ago
    Total endorsement for Veep! There is a significant difference though which even Veep didn't predict - the people in Veep were still riding in the well-oiled deep-state car, while those clowns today is actively destroying that car. Wrt. clowns - note that the most important Hegseth's staffer is his wife who was his producer back at Fox and basically does the same for him at the Pentagon.
  - sillyfluke 1y ago
    Yes, I am familiar. When the dust has settled, it should probably go down as one of the best written shows this side of the century.
  - jay_kyburz 1y ago
    And "Don't look Up!"
- mrbombastic 1y ago
  Yeah it has ruined the old zombie movies where the government ends up the bad guy but a competent bad guy that makes unilateral decisions like quarantining a city or bombing a civilian center to contain infection. I am pretty sure they are gonna all be either 1) running around panicking with the rest of us 2) infighting and useless 3) denying the truth before their eyes if such a catastrophic crisis ever were to happen.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  True, anything that doesn't approximate Idiocracy is now not realistic enough.
verisimi 1y ago
True. But what did you think was happening before, with previous governments?
- whydid 1y ago
  This is an example of the False Equivalency logical fallacy.
  - kubb 1y ago
    When you feel real love for your favorite celebrity convict, whose incompetence is beyond denying, you'll put your mind to work to search for any device that will enable you to excuse anything he does and who he nominates. People will talk about "politicians being incompetent", or act like actually anyone who has ever been in the office was like this. It's a pretty close and comforting way to deal with the reality of supporting a fraud without having to admit that you were duped.
  - verisimi 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - yummypaint 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - DonHopkins 1y ago
      >I don't have a preference between blue or red. In other words, you prefer red, but prefer not to admit it.
enaaem 1y ago
Imagine Hegseth was a black woman…
- xanderlewis 1y ago
  (It’s easy if you try…)
- pjc50 1y ago
  UK comparison: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47996907 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47996907 ; black woman MP has a train can, everyone treats it as a massive scandal. I think someone had a survey once where they found that one third of all hate mail and death threats directed at UK MPs was aimed at her.
  - gadders 1y ago
    There are no excuse for death threats but she is widely acknowledged as borderline competent at best.
  - prawn 1y ago
    For anyone else confused by the phrasing: "Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has apologised after a photo emerged of her sipping a can of M&S mojito on a London Overground train." Meanwhile in Australia, the opposition leader visited a pub during his campaign and the crowd yelled at him to drink a beer out of his shoe.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      *In theory* the problem wasn't the drink, but that it was on the train. Even in the UK, Farage is famous for drink-related photo-ops. I'm emphasising "in theory" because it took a lot of concerted pressure for Johnson to leave after actual pictures of him celebrating with alcohol during the pandemic, so of course it was more an excuse than an actual cause of the vitriol against Diane Abbott: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate
SequoiaHope 1y ago
> It feels like we're watching history get written by the most entitled and inept among us. I suspect this is somewhat common in history (this is not meant to excuse it), but we can’t tell because those people still wrote the narrative.
- twixfel 1y ago
  So Trump will be looked back on as a good president? Highly unlikely, I'd say. Trump is quite uniquely awful in the history of the US.
  - VierScar 1y ago
    Japan's WWII history is uniquely bad but they don't learn about it. Can threaten authors with treason for negative books like he did in an EO recently. Change school curriculums. Then Maga can start revising history.. Was the 2025 recession from tarrifs? Nah it was Biden's inflation, or Ukraine aid. Actually.. didn't China impose tarrifs on US and US just reciprocated? The reality will be altered and murky
    - twixfel 1y ago
      The problem is that everyone knows tariffs don’t work. History will not be kind to trump nor his supporters.
    - yobi0h 1y ago
      > Japan's WWII history is uniquely bad but they don't learn about it. I see this claim form time to time, but the unsavory side of WW2 is thought in classes, although not without controversy [1]: Despite the efforts of the nationalist textbook reformers, by the late 1990s the most common Japanese schoolbooks contained references to, for instance, the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the comfort women of World War II, all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past. The most recent of the controversial textbooks, the New History Textbook, published in 2000, which significantly downplays Japanese aggression, was shunned by nearly all of Japan's school districts. On the other hand, after the occupation, GHQ had imposed a press code [2], i.e. censorship of mass media, that undoubtedly had an impact on postwar Japan, so you could say that the point still stands. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_cont... [2] https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=139387 https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=139387
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
thrance 1y ago
And this is coming from the supposedly "anti-DEI" administration. What a fucking joke.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
imglorp 1y ago
This is highly competent. One skirts the official tools like this to prevent accountability from a written record. Completely sensible if you're planning to be judged for your actions.
layer8 1y ago
There was a related HN submission yesterday that didn’t get traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43846682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43846682
ncr100 1y ago
> history of alcohol abuse Should be a disqualifier for US security clearance. Is easily manipulable - either give them booze to pry secrets or encourage "booze mind" in 1-1 conversations to pry secrets. Plus the huge slip-up of using Signal #signalgate.

pjc50 1y ago

The entire administration is selected for loyalty. In this environment competence is a threat.

eviks 1y ago

Competence is part of qualification, so what you're asking for is not possible even in theory

sillyfluke 1y ago

What kind of tickles me is that any new poltical thriller tv series or movie that posits that matters of state in the US are conducted by serious and knowledgable people is now virtually unwatchable for me. It's virtually impossible to suspend the disbelief required to enjoy something that is so far removed from the reality of today's politicians. (The recent cringe inducing Deniro series comes to mind)

mycatisblack 1y ago
You should watch Civil War (2024) some time. The disbelief is shrinking on that one.
- mnky9800n 1y ago
  I found that movie to be disgusting as it takes real footage of war horrors such as 20 days in Mariupol, suicide bombers, etc. and sanitizes that for American audiences. Using this visual style of movies like 20 days in Mariupol indicates the filmmakers watched those movies and thought that could make them buck. Then it gives you some bullshit feel good call of duty action at the end to go kill the president which is tonally different both in visual style and in the context of the narrative. And it replaces the horrors of war such as bombing maternity hospitals and watching pregnant women be dragged from the wreckage with stereotypical racist Americans. And it justifies all this because it tells the tale of some war time reporters and asks the question what if they are just adrenaline junkies which is why they do their jobs? Thereby undercutting the real value and heroism of those who report on these conflicts who are captured, tortured, and murdered (e.g., Viktoriia Roshchyna). It does nothing to connect the audience with anything that is actually happening in the world and even serves to insulate Americans from the horrors of Ukraine and elsewhere while attacking journalists. I thought that movie was disgusting.
  - decimalenough 1y ago
    ...huh? Civil War is about a group of reporters in the final days of a future civil war in America where a rather Trumpian president is about to be overthrown by rebels. It's not "replacing" anything in Ukraine because it's an entirely different story than Ukraine.
    - mnky9800n 1y ago
      I am talking about the visual language of the movie and how it takes the style of documentary films like 20 days in Mariupol (a movie about the beginning of the war in Ukraine). not the narrative.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        I am confused. What is your complaint here? That US author's stole the visual approach?
        mnky9800n 1y ago
        I don't think the approach was stolen. It is fine for artists to take styles and ideas from other works and put them in their own. My point is that I found the film to be generally an affront to the suffering of people in actual, ongoing wars. It trivialized those experiences using them as a costume so american audiences could giggle in delight at the cinema without having to worry about the trappings of an actual war. And it did so all to tell a narrative that was somewhat against war-time journalism, painting their efforts as self absorbed and self serving. Like look at the way they film the death of the Kirsten Dunst, in this hero pose with camera in hand searching for the perfect picture. Contrast that to the actual life and death of someone like Viktoriia Rushchyna who was tortured and had organs removed or Shireen Abu Akleh who was allegedly shot in the head by a sniper while wearing a press vest. I simply found the film disgusting and if people disagree with me that is fine. Of course any film about war (or perhaps any topic) could be controversial to someone. The WW2 epics starring John Wayne or Sergei Eisenstein's Alexandr Nevsky are both examples where the directors twisted every detail and used every opportunity to present a political message that the viewer may or may not agree with. My view on this is that the director of Civil War, Alex Garland, makes statements with the film that I disagree with. He seems to not see the humanity in people, at least, in my opinion. The movie never doubles down on anything, there is no deeper examination of the characters in the film, they just are until they aren't anymore. This is similar to his 2018 film Annihilation, which is essentially a retelling of J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World, and all of those characters in some way lack a humanity (although I think this works much better in this film as you discover that each character goes into the zone to find something about themselves that is missing and what defines them as human to themselves). And similar to The Beach, the novel he wrote that was turned into the movie The Beach, starring Leonardo Dicaprio about vapid westerners partying in thailand, or 28 days later, the zombie movie he wrote directed by Danny Boyle. Garland seems to see life as cheap and meaningless across the books and movies he has created. He cares more about the visual trappings of the setting he creates than the humans who live there. In the case of Civil War, I find it offensive as it uses the visual style of documentary films about ongoing wars as a costume and set dressing for his movie. And this movie comes from a culture (American) that started a war in Iraq and has done basically no introspection as to how those decisions completely changed their society into what it is today. This also influences the Civil War film. The president is blamed exclusively for all bad things across america. The entire movie is about how everything is the president's fault but lets interview him to see why.
- sillyfluke 1y ago
  As I recall the battle lines were a bit awkwardly drawn for that one. The realism would increase if Cali and Texas were governed by the same party for some time in real life (as I recall they were allies in that movie). I would like to see someone take up the idea of Canamerimex Union in a movie for kicks -- that is, the idea of Canada, California and Mexico forming a union on the west coast (and maybe continuing down the east coast, with Canada bridging both coasts)
  - nozzlegear 1y ago
    > As I recall the battle lines were a bit awkwardly drawn for that one. The realism would increase if Cali and Texas were governed by the same party for some time in real life (as I recall they were allies in that movie). I actually liked that little detail and don't think it's too farfetched. In real life those two states are currently on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but (iirc) we don't actually know why the civil war started in the movie and it seemed careful to avoid any kind of left vs right ideology. California and Texas both have a rich history of calls for secession from the union, and both have heavyweight economies that could allow them to stand as their own countries. I think if a civil war did break out where both states disagreed with the Federal government, they'd be more likely than you think to form an alliance.
    - righthand 1y ago
      The war in the movie starts because authoritarian elected Potus Nick Offerman creates an economic division between the states which causes the states to group up geographically and ally on their divisions. California and Texas today wouldn’t pair but given enough pressure they might to ensure they remain an economic power house.
      - nerdponx 1y ago
        I could imagine them seceding independently, but allying once seceded, especially if the CA secession government shifts more conservative.
    - 1y ago
wickedsight 1y ago
I'm currently watching 24 again and it now feels even more like fiction than it ever did.
- mnky9800n 1y ago
  24 was a wonderful piece of American propaganda whose only goal was to make it seem like torture was okay.
  - acdha 1y ago
    Yes, it was sickening to watch a lot of people - even self-proclaimed libertarians – flip on torture during that period. There was a stark reversal from the 90s where the War Crimes Act was unanimously passed because back then anti-torture laws were thought of as affecting enemies like the Viet Cong, which lasted less than a decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Crimes_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Crimes_Act_of_1996
  - Der_Einzige 1y ago
    The jack bauer power hour is a strong memory of my childhood.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    People who talked about how 24 and Jack Bauer showed that torture was good actually included a goddamned supreme court justice and I think the SecDef? The Bush Jr admin was openly fans of the show. Oh, and the cast were invited to have a panel at a conference for the fucking Heritage Foundation! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P52G4Kyq5M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P52G4Kyq5M A look at the 24 world and it's insane violence by Jon Bois
    - mnky9800n 1y ago
      There should be a whole PhD dissertation in how 24 took over American culture and was used to justify heinous acts with some trite “the ends justify the means” hero porn on prime time. Edit: and don’t forget this show was on fox.
pjc50 1y ago
On the other hand, the UK Spitting Image puppet series of sketches The President's Brain is Missing holds up remarkably well, due to being about Reagan.
ryukoposting 1y ago
In that case, you may enjoy Veep.
- trhway 1y ago
  Total endorsement for Veep! There is a significant difference though which even Veep didn't predict - the people in Veep were still riding in the well-oiled deep-state car, while those clowns today is actively destroying that car. Wrt. clowns - note that the most important Hegseth's staffer is his wife who was his producer back at Fox and basically does the same for him at the Pentagon.
- sillyfluke 1y ago
  Yes, I am familiar. When the dust has settled, it should probably go down as one of the best written shows this side of the century.
- jay_kyburz 1y ago
  And "Don't look Up!"
mrbombastic 1y ago
Yeah it has ruined the old zombie movies where the government ends up the bad guy but a competent bad guy that makes unilateral decisions like quarantining a city or bombing a civilian center to contain infection. I am pretty sure they are gonna all be either 1) running around panicking with the rest of us 2) infighting and useless 3) denying the truth before their eyes if such a catastrophic crisis ever were to happen.
ModernMech 1y ago
True, anything that doesn't approximate Idiocracy is now not realistic enough.

verisimi 1y ago

True. But what did you think was happening before, with previous governments?

whydid 1y ago
This is an example of the False Equivalency logical fallacy.
- kubb 1y ago
  When you feel real love for your favorite celebrity convict, whose incompetence is beyond denying, you'll put your mind to work to search for any device that will enable you to excuse anything he does and who he nominates. People will talk about "politicians being incompetent", or act like actually anyone who has ever been in the office was like this. It's a pretty close and comforting way to deal with the reality of supporting a fraud without having to admit that you were duped.
- verisimi 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - yummypaint 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - DonHopkins 1y ago
    >I don't have a preference between blue or red. In other words, you prefer red, but prefer not to admit it.

enaaem 1y ago

Imagine Hegseth was a black woman…

xanderlewis 1y ago
(It’s easy if you try…)
pjc50 1y ago
UK comparison: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47996907 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47996907 ; black woman MP has a train can, everyone treats it as a massive scandal. I think someone had a survey once where they found that one third of all hate mail and death threats directed at UK MPs was aimed at her.
- gadders 1y ago
  There are no excuse for death threats but she is widely acknowledged as borderline competent at best.
- prawn 1y ago
  For anyone else confused by the phrasing: "Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has apologised after a photo emerged of her sipping a can of M&S mojito on a London Overground train." Meanwhile in Australia, the opposition leader visited a pub during his campaign and the crowd yelled at him to drink a beer out of his shoe.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    *In theory* the problem wasn't the drink, but that it was on the train. Even in the UK, Farage is famous for drink-related photo-ops. I'm emphasising "in theory" because it took a lot of concerted pressure for Johnson to leave after actual pictures of him celebrating with alcohol during the pandemic, so of course it was more an excuse than an actual cause of the vitriol against Diane Abbott: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partygate

SequoiaHope 1y ago

> It feels like we're watching history get written by the most entitled and inept among us. I suspect this is somewhat common in history (this is not meant to excuse it), but we can’t tell because those people still wrote the narrative.

twixfel 1y ago
So Trump will be looked back on as a good president? Highly unlikely, I'd say. Trump is quite uniquely awful in the history of the US.
- VierScar 1y ago
  Japan's WWII history is uniquely bad but they don't learn about it. Can threaten authors with treason for negative books like he did in an EO recently. Change school curriculums. Then Maga can start revising history.. Was the 2025 recession from tarrifs? Nah it was Biden's inflation, or Ukraine aid. Actually.. didn't China impose tarrifs on US and US just reciprocated? The reality will be altered and murky
  - twixfel 1y ago
    The problem is that everyone knows tariffs don’t work. History will not be kind to trump nor his supporters.
  - yobi0h 1y ago
    > Japan's WWII history is uniquely bad but they don't learn about it. I see this claim form time to time, but the unsavory side of WW2 is thought in classes, although not without controversy [1]: Despite the efforts of the nationalist textbook reformers, by the late 1990s the most common Japanese schoolbooks contained references to, for instance, the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, and the comfort women of World War II, all historical issues which have faced challenges from ultranationalists in the past. The most recent of the controversial textbooks, the New History Textbook, published in 2000, which significantly downplays Japanese aggression, was shunned by nearly all of Japan's school districts. On the other hand, after the occupation, GHQ had imposed a press code [2], i.e. censorship of mass media, that undoubtedly had an impact on postwar Japan, so you could say that the point still stands. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_cont... [2] https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=139387 https://www.hiroshimapeacemedia.jp/?p=139387

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

thrance 1y ago

And this is coming from the supposedly "anti-DEI" administration. What a fucking joke.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

imglorp 1y ago

This is highly competent. One skirts the official tools like this to prevent accountability from a written record. Completely sensible if you're planning to be judged for your actions.

layer8 1y ago

There was a related HN submission yesterday that didn’t get traction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43846682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43846682

ncr100 1y ago

> history of alcohol abuse Should be a disqualifier for US security clearance. Is easily manipulable - either give them booze to pry secrets or encourage "booze mind" in 1-1 conversations to pry secrets. Plus the huge slip-up of using Signal #signalgate.