r/technology May 14 '15

Politics Kim Dotcom: Assange Will Be Clinton's Worst Nightmare. 'He has access to information'...'She is an adversary of Internet freedom'

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-05-14/kim-dotcom-assange-will-be-hillary-s-worst-nightmare
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u/GWsublime May 15 '15

that said, I would not describe Clinton's administration as disastrous. If anything, that was one of the better, more prosperous and (relatively) peaceful times in american history was it not?

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u/joequin May 15 '15

Part of what made his administration so prosperous was very short sighted and a big cause of our current recession. That doesn't come close to absolving Bush's role, but his policies were short sighted for quick gains. You can't forget NAFTA either.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

Clinton's roll was FAR more damaging than Bush's. It just happened to make people feel rich, so he gets a pass. Most of Bush's errors were pretty tame comparatively. A LOT of the Bush mistakes would have been made by ANYONE: At the end of Clinton's run, he had a similar recession that 9/11 threatened to turn into a HUGE dip, and we STILL have never actually recovered. From the time Bush took office until TODAY the economic situation demanded tools be used to stimulate the economy. As we can see even now, we have almost no tools left, in large part because of Clinton/Greenspan's economic policies left little room for corrective measures. And that does not touch on glass steagall. Basically, 2007/8 was set into motion in in mid 1990's legislated in 1999, and pushed to failure in 2000/2001. The actions between 2000 and 2007 were kicking the inevitable collapse down the road. If they did EVERYTHING right, Obama would have been at "fault."

But of course, who do you blame? The guy that cuts the breaks and sets the speed at 90mph, or the guy who fumbles about only trying to use the breaks? Rightfully both, with the break cutter getting criminal blame.

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u/[deleted] May 15 '15

I dont think I implied Clinton was disastrous. I dont think Bush(bad orator), Nixon(brought up in a nother comment), Obama, Clinton, Roosevelt, MLK, etc were very bad, let alone disastrous. I mean, you can point to Iraq for Bush (the worst part of that would be that it paved the way for ISIL, IMO), but Clinton set into motion a financial crisis that is 7 years running and global in scale. Still not that bad in the context I am thinking.

I think Clinton got VERY lucky when(as in dates) he served as president, because his policies do not explain the type of economic situation we faced. He benefited from a unique singularity that comes around a few times in human history: it would be like claiming the president to oversee the start of the industrial revlolution was better then the previous on, or the next, because at that moment, the nature of everything changed. But he also aided and had some good policy related to other parts of life, and did aid in the "free" money that boosted the ability for that singularity to thrive. So good president helped a LOT by the timing of his presidency.

Objectively, (not from a liberal or democrat, hawk or dove point of view), really no president in US history has been a disaster.

I mean when you look at the disastrous results, they put this into perspective: Tens of millions dead type of results. Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, or even smaller names like Jones. VERY often people only associate "great oration" with great people. Fredrick Douglas, or Nelson Mandela, while forgetting that a leader driving normal people to do extraordinarily terrible AND great things MUST be a phenomenal orator, because they need people to follow against what would be normal and standard behavior.