Jimmy Carter: The U.S. Is an “Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery”
According to the former president, Americans are now experiencing "a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors."
I don't understand how anyone could've learned about citizens united and thought it wouldn't end this way.
it always was like that even before citizen's united. This just made it more convenient
I mean obviously it was always happening but this must've made it worse
I am from Canada. I still remember my social studies teacher bringing up Citizens United and asking us all what we thought about it. I still think about our naive answers years later lol.
they knew exactly how it would end, thats why they did it
Dude who ushered in neoliberalism in the US: "wow, you guys sure have a shitty system"
better late than never
And how long did neoliberalism last? From the early 1980s to 2008 in its entirety? A quarter century or 25 odd years only? With the peak of "end of history" neoliberalism not even lasting a single decade, from December 1991 to September 2001.
Was all the death and destruction that enabled such a system to exist even worth it? Even from the cynical point of view of capital, this seems like an abject failure.
We are still in neoliberalism, though it is waning, aren't we? If it ended, I think it was probably only circa the invasion of Ukraine, which could be taken as a marker for Russia asserting itself as a world power again and violating unipolarity.
In any case, of course the answer to your question is that it was never worth it to us, but always worth it to the rich.
its actually a pretty chad move tbh, hard to do much better than being margret thatchers soul from hell admitting that neolibralism is fucked and shit and bad
If he took responsibility rather than just being a condescending prick, you'd have a point.
thanks for the insight on the shit you allow to happen in the first place
Yes, what absolute gall he must have to criticize a system which he personally failed to reform given the opportunity he had during... (checks notes) one term in office over 40 years ago! He'll be the first one sent to feel the embrace of medame guillotine!
He was literally the president. This is like Eisenhower warning people about the military industrial complex. Carter's public image as a humble peanut farmer turned president is just that, an image. Carter fought for "right to work" laws, was hostile to labour organising in his own peanut farm, and began arming what would become the Mujahideen in July 1979, which would then become the Taliban. He helped start the proxy war with the USSR in Afghanistan by arming political Islamic extremists.
During that one term, he managed to pass a law that took away federal employees' right to strike. Reagan later used this law to fire something like 10,000 air traffic controllers for going on strike. What he managed to do during that one term was deal a massive, if not fatal, blow to organized labor in the US.
He was literally the first neoliberal President, and again he was the fucking President! There is a dearth of evidence that he gave a shit about fighting plutocracy from his time in office, especially since his policies tended towards austerity! Maybe if he actually stood for something beyond the will of the ruling class, he would have had a chance at being re-elected.
mate, I know his legacy has been thoroughly whitewashed by the media but seriously, look up what happened in East Timor, Nicaragua, Iran, and Afghanistan and I'm definitely forgetting some coups/counterrevolutions. there's plenty of blood on his hands. there are exactly zero US presidents who haven't conducted or allowed genocide. you don't get to be emperor then clutch pearls at the awful shit people are doing, following in your footsteps.
Every now and then Jimmy Carter tells the truth, but he's still a pos who helped create neoliberalism and destroyed Afghanistan by arming terrorist groups, ended Nixon's détente with the Soviets and almost invaded Iran.
I remember him saying how the USA screwed up North Korea, that it was the US's fault. He did the same in Cuba, Venezuela and Syria. I think that since he's already 100 years old and no longer has any power or influence within his own party, and most people hated him when he was president, he doesn't care anymore if the CIA is going to kill him. He can just tell the truth and there's no problem. He can just tell the truth and nobody will care.
Jimmy Carter criticizing the evil system he helped create:
I must imagine he tried. Its tempting to pretend he's perfect.
It's tempting to pretend he tried
Well, ok, yes he's right , but...
Wasn't this guy like mayor of Chicago or something back in the day? Didn't he hold some kind of office with real, tangible political power where he might have tried to actually try to do something about this? Going "Wow, you guys are really fucked" decades later doesn't really absolve someone.
No nothing as powerful as mayor of Chicago, he was only the president of the US
Cough Suharto cough East Timor.
you let this happen, jimmy.
Article is from 2015
So much has improved since then regarding oligarchies with unlimited political bribery, right?
So much has improved since then regarding oligarchies with unlimited political bribery, right?
Its still true
Sure but this is a news community. This link is objectively not news
That doesn’t make it less true.
I love that Jimmy's still out here as a presidential Yoda dropping knowledge bombs at 99.
President's are really into dropping bombs
Bazinga
I love the truth bombs that Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski also dropped in his 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur!
Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.
Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Amazing truth bombs there. No way any of this could have aged badly since then...
I mean this is an old article (2015) but up until 7 mo ago when he entered hospice care he was continuing to do good left and right it seems like.
I feel like he is one of the few politicians that wasn't a corrupt asshole. We need more like that at all levels of government to walk back all the corruption. Hard to get a critical mass of non corrupt jerks though. The greedy sociopaths are drawn to political office like moths to flame.
PS: happy bday JC
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4233246-jimmy-carter-turns-99-as-tributes-roll-in/
No shit Sherlock. Thanks Citizens United! Legalized bribery and made corporations into legal persons.
that time obama said VOTE.jpg
We did fucko, thanks for killing us
Get out now, comments are interested by hexbears
Yeah they'll jump down his throat for being the first neoliberal president but ignore that he actually walked the neoliberal walk.
Ended support for various fascist regimes, promoted human rights, fought against neo-colonial policies (leaving aside for the moment the pitfalls of free trade agreements), etc etc. Literally died building homes for the poor, not like those dorks know what that's like for all their talk.
I don't mind deregulation fanatics quite so much when it's from people that don't support the Pinochets of the world.
It's the ones like Reagan, or most everyone after him, you have to watch out for, the ones for whom "deregulation" means "poison who you want, break all the unions you want" not "we won't stop airlines from offering discounted flights."
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
... He's still alive?
