America Compared: USA is not what you think it is - Page 5 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15141285
Tainari88 wrote:
You talk about humans like if they are old worn out machines or shoes, or babies are dumb and shit....you think the mentally ill and the addicted are what? Refuse? Trash?



blackjack21 wrote:
They are frequently incapable of providing for themselves.



This statement is revealing of your entire societal worldview, BJ -- you've fallen victim to Western reductionism in this atomistic, hyper-individualistic perspective that you have for all things social / societal.

I'll remind that there's such a thing as *infrastructure*, which is *not* reducible to individual usage -- like PoFo itself -- because the costs of supplying to additional users is *negligible* once the infrastructure is installed.

The *point* of society isn't necessarily for everyone to be self-sufficient, because if we did that for *food production*, for example, everyone would be needlessly sacrificing a good chunk of their *lives* away instead of doing what we *do* do, which is industrialized, fuel-driven farms that provide to thousands and millions.

I don't think *anyone* 'provides' to themselves -- *I* certainly don't. Rather, people enter into *economic relationships* and get the wages / money they need to partake from *other* people's efforts. Your worldview, as stated, makes it sound as though you think we're all still living on family farms.


Components of Social Production

Spoiler: show
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#15141452
ckaihatsu wrote:The *point* of society isn't necessarily for everyone to be self-sufficient, because if we did that for *food production*, for example, everyone would be needlessly sacrificing a good chunk of their *lives* away instead of doing what we *do* do, which is industrialized, fuel-driven farms that provide to thousands and millions.

* Be careful when selling the virtues of "what we do."

"We" practice chemical-laden industrial agribusiness, using very few laborers except those that can be temporarily hired from Latin America.

"We" spend our time doing physically stagnant jobs that are probably 90% unnecessary.

"We" don't get enough exercise, have lost much of our life-valorizing kinship, and are disconnected from nature.

1. So I wouln't tout the advantages of large-scale agribusiness, or the absence of farm labor in most people's lives.

2. And "self-sufficiency" isn't just an economic concept. It also relates to self-esteem and self-efficacy - to self fulfillment on the Maslow Needs Ladder.

(tangent, I know)
#15141463
QatzelOk wrote:* Be careful when selling the virtues of "what we do."

"We" practice chemical-laden industrial agribusiness, using very few laborers except those that can be temporarily hired from Latin America.

"We" spend our time doing physically stagnant jobs that are probably 90% unnecessary.

"We" don't get enough exercise, have lost much of our life-valorizing kinship, and are disconnected from nature.

1. So I wouln't tout the advantages of large-scale agribusiness, or the absence of farm labor in most people's lives.

2. And "self-sufficiency" isn't just an economic concept. It also relates to self-esteem and self-efficacy - to self fulfillment on the Maslow Needs Ladder.

(tangent, I know)



No, it's not a tangent -- no need to apologize.

These are all valid critiques, but I'd say that they're mostly applicable to *capitalism* on-the-whole, and how it happens to structure people's lives, etc.

I need to point out, though, that *some* paradigm has to be adopted, and that the capitalist one is *not* all-bad, though the 'externalities' you list are valid.

Here's the *positive* side -- 'glass-half-full':


The Green Revolution, or the Third Agricultural Revolution, is the set of research technology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s, that increased agricultural production worldwide, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s.[1] The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including High-Yielding Varieties (HYVs) of cereals, especially dwarf wheat and rice. It was associated with chemical fertilizers, agrochemicals, and controlled water-supply (usually involving irrigation) and newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization. All of these together were seen as a 'package of practices' to supersede 'traditional' technology and to be adopted as a whole.[2]

Both the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation were heavily involved in its initial development in Mexico.[3][4] One key leader was Norman Borlaug, the "Father of the Green Revolution", who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. He is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation. The basic approach was the development of high-yielding varieties of cereal grains, expansion of irrigation infrastructure, modernization of management techniques, distribution of hybridized seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides to farmers.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution
#15141645
About the Green Revolution, ckaihatsu wrote:Here's the *positive* side -- 'glass-half-full':

Chemical fertilizer, GMO seeds, industrial agricultural practices, flight from rural areas into cities, addiction to poisonous products, chemical pollution...

Soils have become sterile, the traditional variety of plants has been reduced to a few, kinship and community have been harmed severely...

It was the same kind of "win-win" when Christopher Columbus found a continent full of slaves.

newsfromasia wrote:So, in addition to trashing the environment, in a country with exceptional biodiversity, the “green revolution” have made local farmers more vulnerable, especially the small owners. The acquisition of expensive machinery, costly and always more sophisticated products have made it almost impossible not to go in debt. It has not significantly reduced poverty either, as almost half of the children under 5 are malnourished.

The green revolution may have saved millions of lives, but it was a short term solution that cannot go on very long.


For people in rich countries, the Green Revolution (of the Third World) was a total victory of chemicals and machinery over human culture. Our corporate media gave it six gmo thumbs up.
#15141651
QatzelOk wrote:
Chemical fertilizer, GMO seeds, industrial agricultural practices, flight from rural areas into cities, addiction to poisonous products, chemical pollution...

Soils have become sterile, the traditional variety of plants has been reduced to a few, kinship and community have been harmed severely...

It was the same kind of "win-win" when Christopher Columbus found a continent full of slaves.



For people in rich countries, the Green Revolution (of the Third World) was a total victory of chemicals and machinery over human culture. Our corporate media gave it six gmo thumbs up.



Sorry, but I'm going to have to make a distinction between *colonialism* (politics), and *industrialization* (mode of production / economics) -- you're *blurring* the two together into a smeared mess, unfortunately, leaving out all of the *benefits* of civilization to the average person, including the regular use of petroleum.

Yes, there have been social and environmental *costs*, but hopefully those will be addressed in-time to avert global environmental catastrophe. There are *several* methods of carbon capture available, including use of rock dust for fertilizer, introducing algae aquariums, producing methane fuel from carbon dioxide in the air, vertical farming / hydroponics to return land to nature, etc.
#15141687
blackjack21 wrote:I find it sort of amazing that you claim on one hand there is no pressure from the left, and then run back to the inevitability of Marxism. You're arguing that Marxism isn't about to happen, and then arguing that it is within a few sentences of each other.

There is no contradiction between either of those claims from me Blackjack. There is no pressure from the hard left at all in the USA government system because the USA destroyed the hard Left from the 1930s onward. I doubt you have done an extensive study on the fate of the hard Left in the USA BJ. You should. The hard Left from Debbs to the present has been decimated and destroyed. The McCarthyism from the 1950s and the deeply powerful gay Right wing FBI leadership were hard Right and had a lot of power. Study J. Edgar Hoover. He was gay and hard Right and a man who was making a lot of decisions against the Hard Left. The Hard Left only pressured the liberals from the elite like Roosevelt and so on. None of the Roosevelts were socialists BJ. None. All were some kind of bourgeoisie liberals. You should know enough history of that sort for it to be crystal clear and I would not need to bring it up. But apparently you still don't understand what happened to the Hard Left that keeps those sellout liberals from the elite under control or under pressure. You don't get that angle because you are a Right Nationalist and could not care less about what happens. The problem is you want to eradicate the neoliberals in charge right now and they are a result of eliminating the pressure from the hard Left. That is what happens when you eliminate the people who keep them from total sellout behaviors. But? It doesn't matter now because the neoliberal Clintons and the Neoconservative type Bushies are in bed together anyway with the corporations and the international Capitalist class. It is a Marxist prediction. You eliminate the pressure from the representatives of the working class and you let the neoliberals to take over without compromises you get the present predicaments.



Elected establishment Republicans are not loyal to the United States either. Yes. I know this, and that is why I am not a Republican.

Relampaguito, didn't you vote for Trump in this election? Or you didn't vote? Why the love for Trump then? You don't love him? As a tool to get rid of the neoliberals he is terrible BJ. A total and complete failure because he kisses ass to bankers and corporate interests just like Clinton does. In real terms he is not much different from Hillary. Hillary is a lot more cunning and nefarious but Trump is a very wily conman who is for sale and cashing in on his banking needs and corporate stoogies. He is not Mr. Moral Majority. He is a lying scumbag. You might think he is a great hero for the working masses and anti-establishment. He is a puppet they used and he is usable and for sale to the same group. They just think he lacks finesse is all and they are right about that.

Biden did not win. Look at my tagline. Biden actually did say this.

Biden is terrible. I have no illusions about that ex VP of Obama's. But? You got to realize they--The Democratic Party---chose him because he is a total figurehead and does what he is told. They are looking for predictability and less of a personality disorder guy than Trump. Who is seriously personality challenged. They don't want competence at all, they want predictability on how to keep their hold on power. The socialists are a real threat and Warren is very intelligent and she would have negotiated too hard. They need a predictable yes man. So Biden was the establishment's choice. You have to see that the Democratic party is total sellout pieces of lying shit. So they will say he is the 'right moderate' and he is the correct formula for success. Kamala is a total suckup to the party elites there and she is a PC choice. A woman of color who kisses ass and hits all the liberal feel good notes about being ínclusive. That is the ticket for a win for them. They manipulated the hell out of it all. But? The Hard Left is gaining momentum. Two more cycles of disasters without real results and both parties with the bad do-nothing crap will get spanked. Watch how that happens. I have seen it happen time and time again in Latin America, Africa, Europe, Asia. You shall see it happen in the states. Homo Sapiens do get enough of that bullshit and react. I like when that happens. ;)


It is absolutely fiction that Biden got 80M votes. I'm surprised you think that's the case. I'm further surprised that you think socialism is inevitable when you are asserting that neoliberals like Politics_Observer and SpecialOlympian are so dedicated to capitalism and the welfare state.

Special Olympian and Politics Observer are typical liberals in many ways. I am surprised you have not studied what the dominant political paradigm that has kept them in power for a long time has wrought all these years? You don't see the way liberalism appeals to many many people. It is a very powerful political class. You need to study your nemesis well. I don't think you get what they do right at all yet. Why? Too involved in your nationalistic limited thinking to do the correct in depth analysis. You should read Chris Hedges. The man did do the work. Another socialist doing the heavy lifting the lightweights on the Right fail to do. I am not surprised.

To me Trump is nemesis. I support him in all the election challenges. I want them to be humiliated on the world stage for what they did. They think they are stopping Hitler, while demonstrating that they have absolutely no allegiance to democracy whatsoever.

Trump is a failed conman without the ability to do a job that doesn't involve his small minded self interested ways. He has character flaws that prevent what other authoritarians know how to accomplish. He is a fool mainly. What allegiance to Democracy? The USA is an empire that sold itself for money and elitism and is living in glaring contradiction to what it attempted to establish after the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. It fell into the trap of imperialism and lack of respect for the popular will. If it can't right itself? It wrote its destiny. All Empires that fail to right their internal contradictions implode over time. Other groups looking for a weakness and an opening tend to fill in the power vacuum. The USA is following a very classical pattern of behavior so far.

They shouldn't trust the mainstream media at all. They are a fraud. Wholesale.

The Media sucks BJ. They are for sale and untrustworthy. I think many magazines, television shows and etc over here in Mexico are a lot more objective than the ones over there who depend solely on the corporations for their bread and butter. I studied journalism for years BJ. The mainstream media is corrupt and full of bad journalistic practices.


That's part of what you miss about Trump and his tirades against illegal immigrants. Trump's DOJ is actually suing Ivy League schools for racial discrimination against Asians, who are now finding out that the neoliberals do not consider them minorities. Asians are now white as crazy as that seems. The neoliberals hate the Asians as much as they hate white conservatives, because Asians are notoriously socially conservative.

Generalizations about Asians or any ethnicity is a mistake BJ. I met hard Left Asians and hard Right Asians and everything in between. Just because the PRC is supposedly state capitalist and run by supposed "Communists"doesn't mean that the entire nation is all about monolithic political thought. You should study Chinese society better. Do some work. Like my husband has by learning some Mandarin Chinese and hanging out speaking Chinese with a lot of people. There is diversity in China just as there is in any other nation. Don't be fooled by images of shit and stereotypes. Asians got a different style that is not Anglo liberalism. It doesn't make them all social conservatives. Plus, the USA is a nation of immigration. Immigrants have certain agendas when they enter a nation and do their acculturation and assimilation. It is part of the experience. I suggest you stop painting nations with broad brushes and start realizing that human societies as ancient and old as China, Mexico, France, England, India, etc got a lot of hidden aspects and complex ways. Again study Hedges. He did not speak fluent Arabic and when he finally did his entire perspective about what the culture was about transformed. Do the work of understanding them (it is very very hard work BJ), then you can render a verdict about what they are about. And it is only as an outsider and never as a native would know and understand that reality to be about. That work (cultural anthropology is hard work. It is.)


I figure they are some blindingly wealthy bankers with big sexual identity problems. Think about it. In the primaries, Biden came in fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and second in Nevada. His competitors had more delegates than he had, and they dropped out. Kamala Harris dropped out before Iowa, because she was so unpopular she wasn't even polling.

It is all corrupt and manipulated. It is obviously corrupt and manipulated. But that is both parties BJ. That is what the capitalist class does. Sends in bankers, lobbyists and so on and they control what is going on behind the scenes. It has very little to do with what the actual voters might wish to happen in terms of who they would like as a real candidate. A lot of liberals liked Andrew Yang. For example @Rancid likes him. But that dude was shunted aside and disrespected and ignored. He was not the one they wanted making decisions for the Democratic elite. That is how it works. Kamala was a total sellout and exactly loyal to them. So is Biden. So they are the ones who were running even though neither were popular and had no real passion at all from the base.


So you think this guy, who couldn't win his own nomination without bribing the competition to drop out and picked a VP candidate that couldn't even make it to Iowa before her campaign imploded together got 80M votes?

I think he is the establishment's choice. And the failure of Trump to be predictable and a good administrator lost Trump his puppet show for now. People also did not find Trump an attractive Molotov Cocktail BJ. I hate to break the news to you but Trump is a Major Asshole and he is not someone a lot of people without personality disorders really respect, or can tolerate on the big screen talking political bullshit on a daily basis. It is like watching an amateurish actor on a stage...the novelty wears off and you want someone like Robert De Niro. Lol. Though Biden sucks as a performer. Obama was a lot more polished. But that is what happens. You run out of the ones pro establishment who can actually kiss up and maintain the illusions with aplomb. You are dealing with untalented politicians BJ. There is a dearth of political talent in the USA system. They got some real BORES in my opinion. Cést la Vie. That is the way it goes.

Murdoch's wife and sons are liberal, not conservative. They bring on a RINO like Paul Ryan to their board. They only have viewership, because of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Without them, FoxNews would fade away.

I can't stand Hannity, Ingraham and Carlson. But all of those Right wing millionaires will tow the corporate line because that is where their bread and butter is from. Shills of the corporate class--and they will do what the Neoliberals require if their bucks are hanging on the line. A bunch of people with no real principles. Theyb are terrible BJ. FoxNews is a corporation. They are loyal to making money and themselves. More than anything else.

Communist societies are notorious for making humans cogs in a machine. However, humans are social animals. They are built for some amount of collectivism, and they are territorial and competitive, so they are built for some amount of individualism too.

You have no idea what you are talking about BJ. There is no way of making individuals who are born unique and who have innately diverse characteristics to lose all that and become some same old shit. That is impossible. All of us are innately unique. What political and socioeconomic systems try to do is force people into organizing themselves to serve a system that has a powerful class and a powerless class. If the goal is to bring security and to organize society to not waste human potential you get a paradigm shift that is earthquake worthy. It happens over time. When the societal and economic and historical criteria and conditions are met and it becomes necessary. You have concepts about human society that are rigid and are innately false in its root. You got to stop thinking like a coder and think more like a man who integrates a lot of disparate human elements and lives with the flaws of being a human being first. We are not our productive value BJ. We are our ultimate potentials. That is a big and incredibly important difference between you and I Relampaguito. Learn it. :D :)

They are frequently incapable of providing for themselves.

The old are the holders of experience and wisdom and of tradition. Necessary and foundational parts of human society. The very young are the hope and the love of better set of circumstances and of a new tomorrow and a renewal of the human race. Both are on opposite sides of the human spectrum of human life expressions. Both complement the other. Dual and complementary. Like Men and Women too. Two parts of a whole. For you to not understand this is very interesting. Lol.

Hitler certainly did. Stalin was not exactly ginger with his adversaries either. Mao's agricultural initiatives similarly killed tens of millions of people. For whatever reason, "Nazi" is a bad word, but "socialist" is not. Yet, the common thing among socialists is destroyed economies, mass death, and totalitarianism.

No, you have no idea of the diversity of socialists that exist. There are all kinds. Scientific socialists, Christian socialists (like @annatar1914 is, international socialists like I am, garden variety socialists, democratic socialists, utopians, etc and more. I am a humanist one. I am afraid you are wrong. Mass totalitarianism and mass death is not associated with my branch of socialism. But your nationalistic Master Gene stuff is. Socialism is a threat to capitalist run societies and as such they were attacked badly during the 1940s and 1950s and 1960s. It was systemic and violent because if you don't get rid of us? We pressure the capitalists into concessions or losing power over their property and their slave wage labor tendencies and they hate that with a passion. So we got to be persecuted and destroyed. We are a threat. FoxNews knows this and so do all the Right Wing assholes who hate having to deal with working people and paying taxes to the state for infrastructure and for public projects that do a lot of good in society. Get rid of the socialists and you get to run the show without any resistance. But we don't disappear because it is about a way of thinking. Not a generation. Or not a war or two. It is about values. Human values. So we show up in every corner with time. And the right set of historical conditions. You can keep your distortions of mass death and totalitarian lies about socialism. It has nothing to do with my way of thinking or my type of socialism. But the ignorant dummies who believe all that shit for brain mass media believes it. They will pick up a gun and kill us because they don't know what the hell it is but if they repeat enough lies they just might have some obedient non thinking violent foot soldiers. But the blood is going to be on their hands. Not on ours. We just want a better and humane system. The ones fighting a better system are the ones who don't give a hell about their fellow human beings in many nations. And that is not me. It never was. I care. About us all. Not just American Yankees or Australians, or people from any continent of the Globe. But all of us. That is why I am an international socialist. I care. El Corazon. The key to it all.

You just put me in a category with your assumptions and called me crazy. How is socialism going to fix crazy if so many billions of people are crazy?

No, BJ, you are a racist in your own way. For me being a racist is about being nutty. How can you obviously ignore the human qualities in someone who is not from your same somatic look, who speaks a different language? Comes from some other country. You are stripping that person of their essential qualities so you can be comfortable in your own state of denial and not have to deal with them on an equal level to yourself. Why? Class consciousness, racist thoughts, wanting to not share power, fear, reptilian brains on overload, etc. In the end? It is a form of denial that is not healthy. Mentally, emotionally or socially or economically. It denies human potential and puts people into categories that are not about freedom and dignity but about slavery and dehumanization and becoming objects and cogs in a machine. Something the capitalist world relies on to keep people exploited and down. Something I am against. Punto y se acabo.

Ok. Capitalism is just an economic system. Many prefer it, because it delivers huge surpluses compared to any other economic system.

Delivers huge surpluses to who exactly? I live in Mexico. A lot of poor people work here all day long for shit wages. It doesn't deliver jack shit to them. They are the majority. How many nations who are not Russia, PRC, the USA, and the EU benefitting from this system of capitalism? The PRC decided to limit it through state authority. The USA sold its soul to the corporations. Who can dominate? It will be the masses who have the last say. Not because they are well educated and organized--no. But because they are living the failures. You are in the minority BJ. The system works well for you. You don't commit class suicide. But the others who the system doesn't serve well at all? They are the ones who want a paradigm shift. And humans are meant to struggle. For everything. Their existence, their money, their housing, their families and their jobs and status and their breath and life....it is a daily struggle. Once the need for change is no longer contained? The capitalism will have to be scrapped. Like feudalism had to be scrapped. Humans move on. That is what we do. Capitalism is just a step above slavery and feudalism. It has been around for a while. But it is reaching a critical mass. Once it does? It has to be discarded for something more workable. That is what we do as a species. Evolve. Our socioeconomics are not the exception to the rule of who we are inside. It is our destiny.

Money has no intrinsic value outside of a medium for the exchange of goods. What it does, however, creating an artificial store of wealth, is allow humans to specialize their labor and trade for comparative advantage.

Survival is the driving force. Once our survival depends on change we will make the necessary sacrifices. That is what adaptation is. And we do adapt after all BJ. Adapt in time or perish. That is our challenge. Socialism is up to that challenge. Put society first. Not capital. Paradigm shift and value shift. That is what must happen. And it will.

Back in the 1990s, I went to a show at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco back when I lived there. Bernard Shaw of CNN was hosting it, and Margaret Thatcher, George H.W. Bush and Mikhael Gorbachev were there discussing the world. Gorbachev made a crack like that, and Margaret Thatcher absolutely lit into Gorbachev on the environmental disasters of socialism. Not just Chernobyl and building nuclear reactors with no containment facilities, but the East German Trabant two stroke car, smoke stacks, etc. It was actually Britain that began doing a lot to address air pollution, because the Battersea Power Station could choke London during a heavy fog.

The USSR was invaded by the Nazis. They killed a lot of millions of Russians. Stalin was hellbent on industrializing a very rural nation of peasants. He did what the Robber Barons did in the 19th century. What should happen is not competing to pollute and dominate, but compete in something positive. Unfortunately that requires a different set of values. Let us see if our present and future circumstances helps along sharing of knowledge or it divides us further? It is really up to us as human societies to make the necessary changes. I think human beings can do it. But only if they stop thinking as you do. You think in a very unjust way. You need a corazon. It is keeping you from being powerful. But it is up to you Senor. Not me to change internally. It is up to each of us. We are the best knowers of ourselves. Not other people.

So, to hell with the monolingual Japanese and Chinese, or just white men in North America?

:lol: You think the Japanese and the Chinese don't want their kids and young people who get great educations to learn English or Spanish or French or Arabic, etc to do well financially and socially? They are all multilingual seekers. The educated in the world don't go for monolingualism BJ. Not event the white guys in the USA with a great education think English is enough. Ave maria, you don't have any idea about other societies STILL. You should. But you are too much into nationalistic thinking. I am not surprised.

Really? Because the mainstream media in Mexico is full of truth? In the United States, Trump's share of the Hisapnic vote increased.

There are dumbell voters in every nationality. That is proven. Lol. Nothing changes. The majority of the Black vote, and the Hispanic vote is not voting for Trump. That is still true. I don't give a shit about how many angry at neoliberal people fall for that conman from Queens. The USA offers abysmal political choices. I bet @Rancid hates having to have voted for Biden. He wanted Yang. He is a Dominican American Miami raised Texas resident USA citizen who preferred Yang's compassionate capitalism but he was stuck with Biden. He did not vote for Trump? Why? Because Trump doesn't appeal to most college educated Latino people. He appeals to a right wing in Latin America that is about conservative privileges. They get their asses kicked in Latin American revolutions and go and cry in Miami. I don't care about their bullshit opinions. I am not about some lies about all Latinos think the same way. We never have. Neither have the Chinese Americans and the Koreans and all the rest. There is diversity in all groups.

He is simply using those pushing political correctness against themselves, and he gets press coverage that way because he knows something about how their minds work.

I hate Political Correctness and the reason why people are sick of it has to do with hypocritical pendejismo in the LIBERAL class and their minions. Full of two faced pendejadas of úse the right wording....to hell with all that. :D

:roll: A racist isn't going to sue Ivy League colleges for discrimination against Asians. A racist isn't going to push for prison reform, because it put too many non-violent blacks in prison for unjustifiably long prison sentences. You don't like how he sounds. Do you disagree with his prison reform? Do you disagree with him getting the unemployment rate down for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans? Do you disagree with him fighting for a non-race-based admissions policy to colleges and universities so they don't arbitrarily exclude Asians?

Look BJ, Trump and his pendejo cult followers are not free from racism and discrimination and are equal playing field advocates. They are trying to beat the liberals at the bullshit sweepstakes. I don't fall for it. You have to have consistent ideological rules. The McConnells and the Thurmonds are die hard people on the Right. They might be married to Asians or whoever..it doesn't mean squat to me. It is all about political values and political consistency. And not accepting money from lobbyists and being sellouts who don't care about a damn thing but shilling and being elite plutocrats with hoarding issues. For me? They can try to snow others with that crap. They don't snow me.

You hate his rhetoric and his personality.

You like that narcissist? I don't. I don't like narcissistic disorder types and conmen with his track record. You think you are objective? You are not. He is a terrible statesman. But you don't care because he drives the neoliberals/neoconsevatives crazy eh? Lol. To take the tweedle dee and tweedle dum parties down? You got to smash their paradigm to kingdom come. How to do that? That is what needs to be studied, done and implemented. And it is not an easy task. The entire system is geared to cater to that paradigm. It means some heavy change. That means conflict and a lot of turmoil. But it happens when the conditions are right.

So you're a gun owner, are you?

No, it is illegal to own a gun in Mexico. You got to be a military member, a cop or a huntsman or huntswoman with a license to hunt deer, etc to own one. You can't buy it on every corner here. But I would defend myself under war conditions BJ. Mexico is not into war and the military here face Narcs not Imperial invasions that are expensive. Lol.

Death is inevitable either way.

I have a little boy. I want to hang around for him and for my family. Plus a lot of friends. Death is my opposite name by the way. I will be ok with that when I lived my life well. Not before.

So you can see where a lot of this racism actually comes from--where it has often come from--the Democrats and their media establishment.

The Racism is endemic to the history of capitalism and of building Empires and exploiting human beings for profit.


Right. Biden is the credit card usury guy. My credit is so good, American Express gave me $100 back in appreciation. They don't do that for poor people. They charge them usurious interest rates.

Being poor has its disadvantages BJ. You are right about that. There is pain and anxiety associated with poverty. How many overcome that and become strong, accomplished educated people and still reject bribes from the system to go along with the system and praise it? That does impress me. People that can't be bought off....despite all that temptations of the mundane world who doesn't respect poverty stricken people in bad circumstances. Reminds me of Jesus Christ in the desert wandering and the Devil comes along and tells him, "Just follow me and renounce the Lord and worship me instead and you shall have all the world and its riches..." the Devil was offering him what he controlled. The world was his to offer...if he just adopted his values..and renounced his spiritual liberation." The Christ did not do so. The world we live in is harsh and difficult. It forces people to make huge sacrifices to be true to their internal values. To be true to their level of human empathy and consciousness. Most of us fail that test. But some make the grade. Those are the ones who keep hope alive for the rest. I am sure you understand that.


Maybe you should call it something else so you don't get lumped in with Castro, Chavez, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Kim.

:D Your nationalism can easily be called Nazi by many. But I don't lump you in with a past that has not anything to do with your present. You got some baddies on the far Right. Lol.

Biden's not a "hidden racist." They just don't call him out on his racism. Biden is going to resign and make Kamala Harris president if he wins anyway.

Kamala Harris an immigrant sellout to corporations that did good. She is going to be the USA's second Black mulatta president. Lol. I don't like her. I don't give a damn she is a woman and so on....her values are not sound. So I don't like her. You should pay attention to an individual's values BJ. That is by far a much more important thing to pay attention to than the rest of the PC shitty categories that the liberal mush types come up with. :lol: :D

You need more volunteers than jail cells for that to work well.

The USA has the most jailed people. It is an industry. They are making money throwing people in the slammer. Someone has to make a profit from petty crime and no money for a Dream Team...and it is not OJ Simpson either. Lol.

Just like Trump destroyed a lot of what Obama accomplished, the establishment will destroy a lot of what Trump accomplished.

What did the conman from Queens accomplish? He was obsessed with destroying Obama's great legacy of a half assed health care bad system and some olive branch stuff to Cuba. What is Donald upset about? The Obama man killed Bin Laden. Trump did not pull the trigger. And he was itching to pull someone's trigger....but the neoliberals contained his itchy ways. It is sad...Ave maria. Conman petulant pouting loser pendejo Trump.

Easily solved by leaning into autarky just a bit.


Back to the drawing board BJ. Got to go to dinner. My husband is in Mexico and doesn't want to miss a second of all the culture there is here. Which is a lot. I visited Campeche on Saturday. Gorgeous seaside city. Lovely and perfect weather this time of year. But my son complained at how far from Merida it was...two and a half hours. He said it was too long of a car ride. He protested. The young start protesting young. They want things to be faster. The old folks are not as fast as they are. The future belongs to the ones who have the energy to make changes when they are required.

Take care of yourself BJ. The vaccines fro COVID are coming soon. Hopefully we move on to a new set of problems. And help solve some of them for the younger generations. Saludos Relampaguito.
#15141720
ckaihatsu wrote:...*benefits* of civilization to the average person, including the regular use of petroleum.

Yes, there have been social and environmental *costs*, but hopefully those will be addressed in-time to avert global environmental catastrophe. ...

Yeah, hopefully we won't die off. And in the meantime, oil addiction is really cool. Huh? :eh:

After flirting with communism, Tainari88 wrote:The vaccines fro COVID are coming soon. Hopefully we move on to a new set of problems.

When lots of people were flirting with communism in the early 20th Century - because of general education - the "solution" of the oligarchs was three wars (Franco-Russian, WW1 and WW2). That's how they "got rid of" thinking workers with a plan to accomplish democracy and equality.

So the "hope" for these vaccines might be mitigated by the desire of the elite to erase our brains again like they did with all those wars.

Those wars were a way to reduce the working classes of Europe to rubble, but a vaccine (or new type of lab-created virus) would allow the infrastructure to remain untouched for future tenants. The elite always play to the death.
#15141726
QatzelOk wrote:
Yeah, hopefully we won't die off. And in the meantime, oil addiction is really cool. Huh? :eh:



I hate to *bicker*, but you used an argument of *style*, and my politics don't *require* 'style', or lifestylism. Just sayin'.

Btw, you're being dismissive of *all* locomotion and plastics, etc., that use petroleum. I'm not expecting you to change your position, but I think you're at least *unappreciative* of the *benefits* of civilization, which includes *technology*.


QatzelOk wrote:
When lots of people were flirting with communism in the early 20th Century - because of general education - the "solution" of the oligarchs was three wars (Franco-Russian, WW1 and WW2). That's how they "got rid of" thinking workers with a plan to accomplish democracy and equality.

So the "hope" for these vaccines might be mitigated by the desire of the elite to erase our brains again like they did with all those wars.

Those wars were a way to reduce the working classes of Europe to rubble, but a vaccine (or new type of lab-created virus) would allow the infrastructure to remain untouched for future tenants. The elite always play to the death.
#15141729
ckaihatsu wrote:I hate to *bicker*, but you used an argument of *style*, and my politics don't *require* 'style', or lifestylism. Just sayin'.

I consider your use of asterixes and quotation marks to "decorate" your posts ... with various layers of visual clues around problematic words and phrases ...a kind of semiotic bling.

I like it, and I'm not complaining about this.

Maybe complaining will soon be impossible.
#15141747
Tainari88 wrote:
The USA is an empire that sold itself for money and elitism and is living in glaring contradiction to what it attempted to establish after the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. It fell into the trap of imperialism and lack of respect for the popular will.



Yes, the American Revolution was a bourgeois revolution and it rebuffed monarchical colonialist rule, but it was still *bourgeois*, meaning *class-based*. There was no 'golden' era early-on in which workers were not being exploited and slaves enslaved:



5 A KIND OF REVOLUTION

The American victory over the British army was made possible by the existence of an already-armed people. Just about every white male had a gun, and could shoot. The Revolutionary leadership distrusted the mobs of poor. But they knew the Revolution had no appeal to slaves and Indians. They would have to woo the armed white population.

This was not easy. Yes, mechanics and sailors, some others, were incensed against the British. But general enthusiasm for the war was not strong. While much of the white male population went into military service at one time or another during the war, only a small fraction stayed. John Shy, in his study of the Revolutionary army (A People Numerous and Armed), says they "grew weary of being bullied by local committees of safety, by corrupt deputy assistant commissaries of supply, and by bands of ragged strangers with guns in their hands calling themselves soldiers of the Revolution." Shy estimates that perhaps a fifth of the population was actively treasonous. John Adams had estimated a third opposed, a third in support, a third neutral.



Zinn, _People's History of the U.S._, p. 57
#15141807
ckaihatsu wrote:Yes, the American Revolution was a bourgeois revolution and it rebuffed monarchical colonialist rule, but it was still *bourgeois*, meaning *class-based*. There was no 'golden' era early-on in which workers were not being exploited and slaves enslaved:

It allowed the bourgois classes to promote the killing of the First Nations all the way to the Mississippi River.

It allowed the USA to continue local Slavery after Britain eliminated it at home.

It created the false impression that this wasn't "the same old" British Empire spreading its narrative.

It became the home barracks of a group of well-armed (and socially damaged) refugees from Europe that would go on to attack most of the rest of the world militarily, destroying the social capital, community and kinship of billions of people.
#15141900
Tainari88 wrote:Stop the automatic knee-jerk reactions of "We are the greatest country on Earth!" What the hell is that?


This is a different angle of why this is empty flag waving bullshit: America has a covert action doctrine of "plausible deniability" sanctioned by the June 18, 1948 National Security directive NSC 10/2. Under the direction of Alan Dulles , the CIA interpreted "plausible deniability" as a green light to assassinate national leaders, over throw governments and lie to cover up any trace of accountability …. all for the sake of promoting US/ military industrial complex interests.

We need look no further than our own backyard to see, perhaps, the greatest examples of the policy "plausible deniability" in action back in the 1960's when JFK, RFK, Malcom X and Martin Luther King were assassinated.

I will add that the doctrine of "plausible deniability" morphs into a policy of "implausible deniability" in the face of massive evidence to the contrary that L.H.Oswald was the sole assassin of JFK …… but , that is a short long story for another time.
#15142582

Quite apart from the substance of the issues—on which the Texas suit is entirely false and politically provocative—it is historically unprecedented that 18 of the 50 states are openly flouting the result of 2020 election and demanding that the Supreme Court overturn the will of the people. The line-up of states for and against the recognition of the 2020 elections suggests that the United States is on the brink of a political break-up.



https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/1 ... c-d11.html
#15143033
70 years of Godwin's law, and look who actually voted against Nazi Glorification.

(Hint: It wasn't the USA)

Image

Canada is one of the "yellow" countries on the map, who didn't want to "offend" the Nazi-friendly countries that were: The USA and Ukraine.

Maps of actions speak much louder than words.

(Maps of countries that vote against Israel's colonial (racist) aggressions against Palestinians look very similar to this one)

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