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The Progressive's 8-Step Guide To Foreign Policy

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Because I'm a Progressive and Progressives never say anything original in favor of copying and pasting talking points from other Progressive posts, I hereby repost the following from its original source the last place I saw it, with some revisions to reflect The Current Truth™.


THE PROGRESSIVE'S 8-STEP GUIDE TO FOREIGN POLICY VIA STRONG DIPLOMACY:

1. Announce that the country's behavior is unacceptable.

2. Should they continue behaving unacceptably, we tell them that their unacceptable behavior cannot be allowed to continue.

3. Should the unacceptable behavior continue anyway, then we tell them that we really mean what we said.

4. If they're still behaving unacceptably, then we remind them that we really, REALLY do mean what we said, and that we're not just saying that.

5. Should this result in only more unacceptable behavior, we tell them that this time, we're serious.

6. If that doesn't work (and it usually doesn't, but we Progs pride ourselves on retaining faith in the inherent goodness of our fellow man and our own ability to make others see reason), then we inform them that we may have to consider scheduling an appointment to go to Geneva, where we will meet with fellow peace-loving Progs to discuss the possibility of approaching the U.N. with a request for permission to advise the offending country that we may have to impose sanctions.

7. If that doesn't work, then with the help of our minions in the news media, we distract the masses from what's going on with cute photo-ops like the creation of yet another White House initiative like My Brother's Keeper, and speeches by the First Lady on the crisis of too many moms clogging the grocery aisles as they furrow their brows over nutrition labels and agonize over whether a product has too much or too little riboflavin.

8. If, by this time, the offending country's unacceptable behavior has spread and can no longer be contained, go back to Step 1 and start over, and have faith that this time, we'll get different results.


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Ivan Betinov wrote:Where does the red line go, Pinkie?

See Step 8.

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Among the many talents of Dear Leader, I must highlight his uncanny aptitude at providing frequent opportunities to recycle old images.

Obama DEFCON.jpg

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Here all this time I thought it was a 12 Step Program.

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Dear Commissarka Pinkie! Since this had more weight than just a comment, I unilaterally converted it into a topic of its own, with all the comments it had accumulated on the previous thread.

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9. If I have to stop this car and come back there you're going to be really, really sorry.

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Dig4Utopia wrote:Here all this time I thought it was a 12 Step Program.

Here are four more steps we could insert between 7 and 8:

(a) Release a statement to the masses that what the leader of the offending country is doing will threaten his stature on the international stage (Note how the pronoun is used so it's not quite clear just whose stature is being demeaned.)

(b) If the foreign leader laughs, then go on all the Sunday talk shows and say he's acting this way not because he's strong, but because he's weak.

(c) If the foreign leader continues to laugh, then dress Obama in a denim shirt and jeans a la Bush and/or Reagan, and photograph him in the Oval Office holding a phone to his ear to show the world he's just as tough—and that HE doesn't think this is any laughing matter.

(d) If the foreign leader only laughs harder, and now everyone is laughing, then proceed to step 8.

There's also the old “condemn in the strongest possible terms” standby. I'm not sure what those terms are, but they're never as strong as the ones we reserve for those hostage-taking, bomb-throwing, hatemongering terrorists in the Tea Party who just want to kill people and destroy the government.

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"There will be costs" is a new classic to be added to the list. So many possibilities: Costs to whom? From what? Paid how and by whom? And oh, the wonderful echoes of J. Alfred Prufrock's "There will be time":

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea. ...

... In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

--T.S. Eliot


Or perhaps not ... Dear Leader would never have "time for you and time for me." Strike the "time for you" phrase.

But what about step 0?

0: Admit that they have a problem.

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Commissarka Pinkie wrote:
Dig4Utopia wrote:Here all this time I thought it was a 12 Step Program.
Here are four more steps we could insert between 7 and 8:
Once again we (er, Pinkie) shows the world the sheer genuis of korrekt thinking and the resulting efficiency of a true Communist model. Does capitalism {spit} have 12 steps in an 8 step program?Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Bow down Kulaks.

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We are so fortunate to have the "Lightbringer" leading us in foreign affairs right now instead of some deranged rethug neo-con bushitler type.
obama leading on ukraine.jpg

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Why doesn't Dear Leader denounce Putin as a racist. It works so well with the Rethuglikkans!

mi
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Meanwhile the latest development in Conservative's foreign policy thought is to check, whether any side of a conflict can be said to be anti-Semitic -- and to withdraw from the conflict completely if so.

Yes, Michael Savage, I'm looking at you, you racist Tea Party pig!


 
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