Former US President Jimmy Carter said the US works more like an “oligarchy than a democracy,” while also lambasting Trump’s “hopeless” approach to solving the Israel-Palestine issue, and the increasing tension with North Korea.
The former president was speaking at a ‘Conversation with the Carters’ event at his Carter Center in Atlanta on Tuesday. He said money in politics is what makes the US more like an oligarchy – run by a small group of rich people – rather than a democracy, AP reports.
This isn’t the first time the 39th president has made such comments. In 2015, he referred to the “unlimited political bribery” that has “created a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”
Carter was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling to allow corporations to give unlimited campaign donations to political candidates, which he has previously said was “the most stupid decision” the court had made.
North Korea
On escalating tensions between the US and North Korea, Carter said, “The first thing I would do is treat the North Koreans with respect.”
“I know what the North Koreans want,” he said. “What they want is a firm treaty guaranteeing North Korea that the US will not attack them or hurt them in any way, unless they attack one of their neighbors.” Carter said, “But the United States has refused to do that.”
Carter said he would send his top person to Pyongyang immediately, adding: “If I didn’t go myself.” The former president visited North Korea three times between 1994 and 2011.
“Until we’re willing to talk to them and treat them with respect as human beings, which they are, then I don’t think we’ll make any progress,” he said.
Middle East
Meanwhile, Carter said he doesn’t think that Trump can bring peace between Israel and Palestine.
“I don’t think Trump or his family members are making any progress in that respect,” he said, adding he is “practically hopeless” that Trump will do anything to give “justice to the Palestinians.”
Carter criticized both Israeli and Palestinian leaders for failing to be flexible, but said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “no intention at all of having a two-state solution.”
Reprinted from RT News.
Carter was a fuckup to the nth degree. Also an asshole. Give me a break!!!
Hey Fat Guy, you should be called Fat Head.
You may disagree with Carter’s policies when he was President, but he was the last guy we had in charge who had any integrity.
I liked Carter, I thought he was honest. Of course, I also like Reagan and Nixon so I’m probably full of shit. But after Reagan we have elected nothing but losers to the nth degree.
Carter did less damage to the constitution and our civil liberties than any other modern president. From a standpoint on measuring ONLY his adherence to the constitution, he can be considered the best modern president. Some people might say thats the primary job of the president, most thing now done by the feds are properly the duty of the states. He didn’t start any wars, he didn’t push any draconian legislation like the patriot act. For his record of not attacking our civil liberties or wasting our lives and money on foreign nonsense, he will always have my gratitude, regardless of how I disagree with him on other things.
Another thing about Carter, he seems to have class. Ive done habitat or humanity a few times, always enjoyed myself, and always felt good about who we were building houses for after meeting them. Doing what he does is a worthwhile endeavor, unlike, say, running a “charity” that exists only for personal enrichment, or lingering to undermine the current president.
I always like President Carter, though I disagree with some of his policies. He did seem honest. In fact, I think he was too honest and that’s why the deep state didn’t like him.
Why the law can’t limit donations to politicians to living-breathing American citizens and no one else, I don’t know.
Well said Gator. I too think that he was the last merkin president. Every one of them since carter could have been a golden retriever for all the good they did.
Am also fond of Carter. Seems to me that Carter got a negative reputation and people just seem to hop on the train without knowing any details.
Pls delineate how Carter was a ‘fuckup’ and and ‘asshole’. Generally speaking, it is assholes that make unsubstantiated ‘ad hominems’ against others.
Easy. 50% misery rate, 50 hostages in Iran. Recession, inflation, unemployment.
In my 50+ years of paying real attention to politics Jimmy Carter was the ONLY president I have a shred of respect for. In his term he had that one screw up sending those choppers into Mogadishu. I forget the body count but compared to the his successors it was a trifling blood spill-tragic that it was. His spending was absolutely miserly compared, again, to those that followed especially so those detestable repo liars. Despite all the bullshit you have heard from repo’s on how much they love small gov’t it was Carter that actually reduced it. He repealed trucking and airline regulations allowing the free market to reduce the cost to consumers by an amazing amount. He speaks the truth about Israel’s human rights violations against the Palestinians even in the face of the AIPAC venom directed his way along with their asshole goyim amen corner. And when he retired he didn’t peddle his ass to the highest bidding power brokers. He lived an honest and humble, dare I say, christian life. I never thought I’d ever praise any politician but feel honor bound to say Jimmy Carter is a decent and honorable man.
“In his term he had that one screw up sending those choppers into Mogadishu.”
Are you talking about the thing in 1993 they made the ‘Black Hawk Down” movie about? Carter was long gone by then. That was slick willy’s mess, with an assist by Bush I.
He lost the choppers attempting to rescue the Iranian Hostages. If not for that hostage situation he would have beaten Reagan hands down.
That was the Iranian hostage rescue mission. I have a cousin that was injured in that, burned really bad.
el chicken scratch here,
One of the generals said he was dismayed at Carter’s method of policy-making. Carter said he cancelled the B-1 because he had a portentous dream that if he built more than 3, he would start WW3. Nowadays, presidents consider that a great dream and want to get started building the weaponry right away.
My father-in-law hated Carter. He was pro-Hoffa all the way. Today, we can see the effects of de-regulation on the Teamsters pension fund. However, after Nixon’s grasping at straws with price controls, Carter had to go further and start discounting via deregulation to backfill the recession.
It all goes back to Nixon, even back to LBJ, for trying to wage a war on the cheap.
Which reminds me of another thing – all this talk of FEMA camps and mass arrests is BS – the government doesn’t have the resources to rebuild a couple of cities and it sure as heck doesn’t have the money to incarcerate and feed millions of people. Have you not read that it costs more to keep one prisoner in Sing-Sing than what a regular Joe makes annually on the outside?
Reagan’s talk of shrinking the Federal government so that it was small enough to drown in the bathtub, was counter-intuitively Trumpian but way ahead of its time. Even Trump’s proposals may be ahead of their time.
Choppers into Mogadishu?!? WTF! That was Clinton. I expect better from TBP.
Ask the East Timorese how “decent and honorable” they feel about the guy who supplied the Indonesians with arms, ammunition and diplomatic protection while they did a little ethnic cleansing.
Learn your history.
Corrected. Iran. The point stands. Less people were killed by Carter’s military than any of his successors. By a lot.
And yet the ‘people’ voted him out of office!
Carter is either a study in contradictions or the worst sort of hypocrite and con artist. I am not sure which. He ‘appeared’ to be humble by carrying his own bag onto Air Force 1 but it was later reported that the bag was empty. He decries the oligarchy but he was instrumental in the Trilateral Commission and filling the government with CFR rats. The list goes on and on.
Maybe he had good intentions but did not have the balls to really carry it out or his loved ones were threatened or whatever. Who knows?
Carter made mistakes. One of them was the Synfuels boondoggle, another was failing to recognize what was going on in Iran and betting all of our horses on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The failed rescue mission for the hostages cannot be put on him…that was a military fuckup. Other negatives were his crazy brother and generally weird family but he had no control over that.
In some ways Carter got the same treatment from the deep state that Trump has received, in that both were outsiders. So they tamed Carter by forcing him to get rid of his longterm buddies and allies like Bert Lance and Hamilton Jordan by fabricating bullshit scandals upon each.
Interesting tidbit; Carter sent Lance to the CIA to get the real story about JFK. He was shown the door, of course.
Billy Carter was the best thing about the Carter years.
I lived in Georgia when Carter was a very UNpopular governor, so when he was even considered as presidential material we were shocked at the prospect. After the polished turds we have had since Jimmy Cartoon was in office, maybe he was the last sorta-kinda real president, and that ain’t sayin’ much. He and his wife at least conducted themselves properly and had some moral fiber about them.
No denying Carter might be an honest, nice, perhaps righteous guy. But he’s a pussy, and the world is full of assholes. So he got walked on by bad folks around the world, like a pacifist, or Jesus. That is the lesson, you get crucified for doing the right thing. That makes for a bad president in some cases, like standing up to some Iranian students and Ayatollah. I’m for peace. Some turds like the dear leader aren’t. War helps maintain their power.
Carter was a complete fuck-up. The economy totally sucked when he was there. The interest rates were through the roof. remember the term “Stagflation”. Hated his ass and still do, however I actually hate Obaaaaaamaaaaa more.
Team Goy #432
The president in office always gets blamed for a bad economy and praised in a good economy, but it’s those that come before that set that economy in motion, and they skate.
Same will probably happen to Trump. He’ll get blamed when things fall apart, but it was what the former presidents, Congress, and the Fed did that put it all in motion.
Exactly right. The stagflation years should rightly be laid at the doorsteps of Johnson and Nixon.
Nixon may not have had much choice about letting the dollar float by ending Bretton Woods, but he sure as hell didn’t need to bail out the Israelis in ’73 and that led directly to the first Arab oil embargo.
Carter was our most recent (hopefully not last) honest president. Was he a good president? That is a different question.
Teddy Roosevelt…. A real man’s prez…. ’nuff said….
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How delusional can you get. Sober up bitch.
Team Goy #432
Carter was great. Oh, except for giving us the Dept of Education, not to mention the EPA. Oh, let’s see he also signed the Federal Reserve Reform act of ’77, allowed the GAO to stop auditing the Fed via the Federal Banking Agency Audit Act of 1978, oh and on his way out signed the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 which disallowed states to have usury laws. Everyone thinks that the giant financial ass ramming by the bankers started with Reagan, but it really got going under Dimmy Carter.
Nixon started the EPA I believe. Carter is to blame for plenty of other things, such as:
DOEducation, a payoff to the teachers’ unions that voted for him
DOEnergy I believe? Another money-wasting growth of government
Continual growth of government spending, welfare / transfer programs, waste, fraud & abuse
Carter was a naggy puritan without any of the redeeming features; expanded the Drug Wars (both domestic and foreign); wasted time on boondoggles of alternative energy, with little to show for it. Also raised the minimum wage?
Carter was vastly incompetent, and aside from a few minor victories like the Camp David accords was outclassed by foreigners in foreign affairs.
Nixon started the EPA. It was Carter that started the Dept of Energy.
Don’t forget the “Community Reinvestment Act” a component of the 2008 crisis in which we really have never recovered from.
Fuck Carter. He might have been a nice guy, but still an imbecile.
““I know what the North Koreans want,” he said. “What they want is a firm treaty guaranteeing North Korea that the US will not attack them or hurt them in any way, unless they attack one of their neighbors.” Carter said, “But the United States has refused to do that.””
If true, I surely don’t understand what the problem is. It’s hard to believe the problem could be that simple but given that the US govt is involved, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Not sure if it’s true but I’ve read speculation that the worlds central bankers have a goal of enslaving EVERY country on earth with their degenerate banking systems and Iran, Myanmar and N. Korea are among the few holdouts standing in the way of achieving that goal.
“Leaders in North Korea don’t want to blow their money on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles when their people are on the brink of starvation. But what choice do they have? The primary responsibility of every government is to provide security for their people. That’s hard to do when the nation is still technically at war with a country that has toppled or tried to topple 50 sovereign governments in the last 70 years. The Korean War did not end with a treaty, it ended with an armistice which means the war is ongoing and could flare up at any time. And Washington won’t sign a treaty with the North because it despises their form of government, and is just waiting for the opportunity to force them from power. Trump is no different from most of his predecessors in this regard. He hates the leadership in Pyongyang and makes no bones about it.
Bottom line: The US refuses to provide the North with any written guarantees that it won’t resume hostilities, kill its people and blow their cities to smithereens. So, naturally, the North has taken steps to defend itself”
http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/why-trump-wont-start-war-north-korea/ri20915
Doesn’t anyone remember that MORTGAGE RATES were 20% during the Carter years?
Interest rates (in a system of HONEST banking) should reflect the savings rate and the risks involved. With the Fed, NONE of these things come into play. Nixon’s closure of the gold window and the final destruction of any link to gold, removed the reins from the money creation machine. Volker’s move to raise the cost of money to these high rates, may have hurt housing, but the stimulation of massive saving (the engine that TRULY fuels a successful society), laid the foundation for the incredibly prosperous 80s. Central planning of money and central banking are crimes against humanity, but given the circumstance, these higher rates were absolutely the correct medicine for the day. Had the market been FREE to set interest rates, likely they would have been nearly as high. One cannot look at the pathetically low rates we now suffer under as anything close to what the market would set either. Those high rates were probably the BEST THING of the Carter administration. I know I was getting 12.5% interest on a savings account from the proceed I got when my father was killed by a drunk driver. That was certainly better than 0.15% today.
I was born shortly after Johnson conspired to have Kennedy murdered on behalf of the Deep State….so NO, I do NOT remember when the US had a real president. I have worked in many presidential campaigns to get a real president elected, but none of them were successful because Americans no longer want a real president (or freedom, liberty, constitutionally-limited government, and end to the war on drugs, etc.)
You are mistaken. Johnson did not have JFK murdered. Israel and the CIA did that (with some minor help from the mob). Why? Israel because JFK demanded they open their Dimona nuke facility (built with stolen US technology) which at the time the Ben Gurion called a textile plant.
JFK was determined to keep nukes out of the middle east. The CIA because JFK threatened to shut the whole fucking thing down after their proposed Operation Northwoods, which he terminated and the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Gotta admire Jack Rubenstein in a way. He took one for the team.
Imagine if JFK had succeeded, our beloved spook SSS might have had to find gainful employment.
Carter was the last Democrat I will ever vote for. Don’t any of you remember the misery index, hyper-inflation, 20% mortgages, or his fireside chats wearing a sweater to show us how to survive a cold winter with fuel shortages? He was a micromanager who did not know how to delegate, the worst president of my lifetime – until Obummer came along.