CIA new nominee director Gina Haspel ran a torture site and destroyed evidence

Given that they are running the government, congress, the CIA and everything else besides, a lot of people care - and maybe you should too?

Perhaps you should consider caring about the "nutso" GOP, as their hold on power is the current reality.

But I agree with the original point, GOP did start this mess on the lie of weapons of mass destruction.

I don't understand this whole idea that we're 'normalizing' immoral actions. Never in our history have they not been normal.

I don't disagree with the fact, I disagree with the comparison.

Perspective is in order here. "Credible estimates of Iraq War [alone] casualties range from 150,000 to 460,000" [0].

Obama inherited two wars (one illicit) and he settled on drone strikes in part to reduce the awful rate of civilian casualties. There is really no equivalence here and to suggest that there is actually introduces the bias that makes it about right vs. left.

I applaud your encouragement to focus on facts, but let's consider the complete set vs. those that support a particular world view.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#T...

"I don't mean to 'complain about points' but it's rather absurd to look at the wild swings from +8 to -8 and back again for any of my posts on this topic. It speaks to me that there are at least two 'factions' with very polarizing opinions on this, and the context has turned less from discussion into silencing vs vouching. I certainly don't remember seeing these patterns as strongly 5+ years ago."

I've become increasingly unhappy with the quality of discourse over the last few years, especially on these "fringe" topics. It's doubly sad because I haven't found comparably good levels of discussion that HN sometimes generates, but for these other topics. (Ignoring the additional sadness that I fear by sticking our heads in the sand about anything that smells like politics we're in for a "Very fun" next few decades, I've historically been a strong advocate that to draw a hard line in the sand between "this is tech" and "this is politics" is to abscond a lot of responsibility _every_ expert community should have for the political space they operate in)

These type of posts get flagged almost immediately fyi

"Organize ourselves." The meat and potatoes here seems to be in what it means to be organized. Amnesty International would theoretically fit the bill of what we're seeking, but as demonstrated by our inability to even end our own indefinite detention facilities (gitmo) during the tenure of a president who was ostensibly opposed to it, we can observe that the organization we've had at our disposal to fight these wrongs is unfortunately lacking in terms of producing results.

Meanwhile, the NRA has taken a different angle of "organization" and has seen it pay dividends, as their message by and large continues to be the law of the land, despite an onslaught of events (consistent mass shootings) that one would expect to undercut them.

How can we organize in a way such that we fall into the latter group and not the former? (In success, not in virtue)

And now the anecdotes. The other night I had a conversation with my mother about Vietnam. She had protested heavily, and told me about the inflection points in public opinion (kent state, tet, and the draft numbers themselves). For her, and her peers, "what is your draft #" became one of the key topics of conversation, the understanding of the implications of not doing anything about the war was pervasive among the broader population.

To loop this back to my main point, in absence of:

1. A clear, sustained, and singular message.

2. _awareness_ of this message throughout society.

3. A societal "concience" that the message is in fact something worth having

I am very pessimistic about incurring change; and she and I agreed that all 3 aspects are currently somewhat lacking in the American zeitgeist.

This loops back on my whole frustration about these topics often being persona-non-grata, so I'd ask if you agree with my summation, and what points you think can most effectively be addressed? (again to reference my root post, this is why I think we have a privileged position as tech influencers and business-people, since there's often such tight connections between our work and govt, and we may be able to flex this)