[Potemkin]

I don't disagree with most of this. But the US have a check on its power with the people's vote. Otherwise, Trump would probably still be in power, or Cheney & Rumsfeld using their puppet Dubya to still drop bombs on Iraqis.

Don’t worry, another Dubya and another Darth Cheney will be along soon to “liberate” yet another nation, and Trump 2.0 will sweep to power eventually - the MAGA crowd haven’t gone away, @Unthinking Majority. And those guys don’t give a fuck about checks and balances. They just want their own way and they want their favoured leader to rule forever. And, some day, it’ll happen.

[Unthinking Majority]

If we have a multi-polar world where only one pole is a liberal democracy (or trying to be one anyway). What does this means for the rest of the world?

Doesn't sound good, doesn't sound like a world I'd want to live in. This desire for a multi-polar world by westerners is bizarre to me. It's certainly a situation of running away from one devil, to an even worse one.

This happened during the Cold War and a large portion of the developing world was ripped to shit over the tug-of-war.

[Tainari88]

I don't disagree with most of this. But the US have a check on its power with the people's vote. Otherwise, Trump would probably still be in power, or Cheney & Rumsfeld using their puppet Dubya to still drop bombs on Iraqis.

The popular vote has been sidetracked various times already. That is not a democracy. The electoral college system is flawed. Corporate lobbyists are shaping political policies on the hill in a real way. Gerrymandering is a problem.

How the USA government is losing its democratic representation consistently, and why it is doing it all the time. LOSING the battle for democracy.

I can go on and on.

The reality is people do not really get how bad it is.

Puerto Ricans don't vote in Puerto Rico.

Many don't vote. It becomes too complicated. They should modernize the voting process.

In the end, though the USA does not go out of its way without tremendous pressure to include more voters. Mainly since the demographic population is rapidly changing in the USA. If you believe in democracy you include the most amount of voters as is legally possible.

Colonialism is what Pine Ridge talks about. It is a psychological burden. It is real and it is damaging in a very terrible way. It can change and it depends on changing the system.

[Unthinking Majority]

Don’t worry, another Dubya and another Darth Cheney will be along soon to “liberate” yet another nation, and Trump 2.0 will sweep to power eventually - the MAGA crowd haven’t gone away, @Unthinking Majority. And those guys don’t give a fuck about checks and balances. They just want their own way and they want their favoured leader to rule forever. And, some day, it’ll happen.

I think they're just a loud minority. They didn't get their way in 2020 and the reasonable swing voters in the swing states put in Trump in 2016. A Trump nomination is going to lose in 2024 i'd have to think. His appeal to the average voter has worn off a lot from 2016.

Funny thing is Trump's foreign policy was like the least warmongering since WWII most likely, minus maybe Jimmy Carter?

[Tainari88]

This happened during the Cold War and a large portion of the developing world was ripped to shit over the tug-of-war.

Well, UM, the USA still is trying to keep its Third World slave vassal states. When will it give up on being the Big Bully and when will Putin give up on trying to recreate an old system that fell apart due to not being about ordinary workers and regular people's needs?

That is the issue. Dealing with the bulk of human labor and human needs. Not some mafiosos in Moscow or some corporate Exxon Mobile tax dodgers in the USA.

[Unthinking Majority]

The popular vote has been sidetracked various times already. That is not a democracy. The electoral college system is flawed. Corporate lobbyists are shaping political policies on the hill in a real way. Gerrymandering is a problem.

How the USA government is losing its democratic representation consistently, and why it is doing it all the time. LOSING the battle for democracy.

I think the #1 threat to western democracy is internal corruption and has been for many decades. Western governments sold out to enrich corporations and allowed them to do open business with China and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Western politicians will even take money and help from foreign enemies if it will help their election chances. We saw this with Trump and: https://globalnews.ca/news/9534893/high ... andidates/

[Tainari88]

Don’t worry, another Dubya and another Darth Cheney will be along soon to “liberate” yet another nation, and Trump 2.0 will sweep to power eventually - the MAGA crowd haven’t gone away, @Unthinking Majority. And those guys don’t give a fuck about checks and balances. They just want their own way and they want their favoured leader to rule forever. And, some day, it’ll happen.

I know you love Truss, you love May, you love Johnson, and Sunak, and who else will they try to get the UK to accept? Lol.

They will get a DeSantis or another asshole of the worst sort.

People continue to believe in everything is ok in Americanaland. It is not.

[Potemkin]

Well, UM, the USA still is trying to keep its Third World slave vassal states. When will it give up on being the Big Bully and when will Putin give up on trying to recreate an old system that fell apart due to not being about ordinary workers and regular people's needs?

That is the issue. Dealing with the bulk of human labor and human needs. Not some mafiosos in Moscow or some corporate Exxon Mobile tax dodgers in the USA.

Exactly. Modern politics is not fundamentally different from the politics of, say, ancient Rome - elites battling it out to divvy up the spoils of exploitation. We need a fundamental democratisation of politics. And by that, I don’t just mean one-man-one-vote - I mean a fundamental paradigm shift, where the elite politicians serve the ordinary working people, instead of the other way around. This has never happened yet in human history. It seemed to have happened in October 1917, but that turned out to have been a false dawn. But it is the only way to save human civilisation from self-destruction. Either we do this, and make it stick, or we face long-term collapse. Our elites are still playing the same games the ancient Roman elites were playing two millennia ago. Have we learned nothing?

[Tainari88]

I think the #1 threat to western democracy is internal corruption and has been for many decades. Western governments sold out to enrich corporations and allowed them to do open business with China and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Western politicians will even take money and help from foreign enemies if it will help their election chances. We saw this with Trump and: https://globalnews.ca/news/9534893/high ... andidates/

You can't blame capitalists for acting like capitalists. What you need to do is know that capitalism itself is creating the conditions to change the rules of the game and how it is played. Because all actions got a REACTION to the action.

That is the reality of the polarity.

It is the lime in the coconut and it fills you all up.

Lol.

Put the lime in the coconut.

It means you need to solve the contradiction that is creating the tension. That is how all political, social and economic evolutions happen in human societies. By having to treat a glaring contradiction in the system.

Put the lime in the coconut. To relieve the bellyache.

[Tainari88]

Exactly. Modern politics is not fundamentally different from the politics of, say, ancient Rome - elites battling it out to divvy up the spoils of exploitation. We need a fundamental democratisation of politics. And by that, I don’t just mean one-man-one-vote - I mean a fundamental paradigm shift, where the elite politicians serve the ordinary working people, instead of the other way around. This has never happened yet in human history. It seemed to have happened in October 1917, but that turned out to have been a false dawn. But it is the only way to save human civilisation from self-destruction. Either we do this, and make it stick, or we face long-term collapse. Our elites are still playing the same games the ancient Roman elites were playing two millennia ago. Have we learned nothing?

People often wait for crisis to actually respond to conditions. They need a new democratization of the workplace. They need to get more control of their labor and of what is produced locally and how it is served and marketed and done. I think AI can liberate dangerous, and unsafe, repetitive work that does not suit a human sensibility. Many things can be applied for a solution.

But the myths of lies that are sold for such a long time as truth has to be discarded.

In the end? Humans need to change their thoughts about what are societal needs, planetary needs, and distinguish them from wants and false desires that are artificially created.

And I think I see an opening and it looks great. But it all depends on how hard people are willing to work to make it happen for themselves and their futures. If they allow these abusive authoritarians to have a blast of the past of WWII and racist shit that does not work, and many other dumb stuff to come back for a second appearance? The whole transformation will take a long time. Centuries.

Got to build from the mistakes. That is wisdom.

Put the lime in the coconut Potemkin!

[Rancid]

I like how threads about other nations, always become a thread about the US.

[Pants-of-dog]

This happened during the Cold War and a large portion of the developing world was ripped to shit over the tug-of-war.

A large portion of the developing world also had serious troubles from international meddling from the end of the Cold war until the present, while we lived in a uni-polar world.

And during the Cold war era, the USA and other western nations invaded or meddled in countries that had no significant Soviet influence.

A uni-polar world with the US or the west at the helm is not more peaceful or better for the developing countries.

[JohnRawls]

I like how threads about other nations, always become a thread about the US.

There are two certainties that you will find near US and to a lesser extent EU nation state embassies outside of EU and US:

1) A protest against those countries.
2) The largest queues for immigration to those countries.

Originally said by Stephen M Kotkin but modified by me.

[Rancid]

There are two certainties that you will find near US and to a lesser extent EU nation state embassies outside of EU and US:

1) A protest against those countries.
2) The largest queues for immigration to those countries.

Originally said by Stephen M Kotkin but modified by me.

I see, so the more immigration a nation sees, the eviler it is.

[Rich]

There are two certainties that you will find near US and to a lesser extent EU nation state embassies outside of EU and US:

1) A protest against those countries.
2) The largest queues for immigration to those countries.

Originally said by Stephen M Kotkin but modified by me.

So Joe Biden blows up our oil pipe lines in ord3er to crush European business, forcing us to buy over priced US petroleum products, would it be any wonder if Europeans wanted to move to th eUS and become one of the exploiters as opposed to one of the exploited.

Another example, just because an Afghan thinks the American intervention in Afghanistan was a catastrophe, remember not all of Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban when the Northern Alliance was supported by Vladimir Putin, doesn't seem inconsistent with wanting to escape the mess the Americans have left behind and move to America.

[JohnRawls]

So Joe Biden blows up our oil pipe lines in ord3er to crush European business, forcing us to buy over priced US petroleum products, would it be any wonder if Europeans wanted to move to th eUS and become one of the exploiters as opposed to one of the exploited.

Another example, just because an Afghan thinks the American intervention in Afghanistan was a catastrophe, remember not all of Afghanistan was controlled by the Taliban when the Northern Alliance was supported by Vladimir Putin, doesn't seem inconsistent with wanting to escape the mess the Americans have left behind and move to America.

Joe Biden didn't blow up the pipeline, stop listening to conspiracy theories that have been DISPROOVEN.

It was the Russians highly likely so they don't need to pay the fines for not delivering the gas which they themselves CUT OFF before the explosion a week ago. Now they are gonna go to court blaming everyone and stall the fine payments for a decade but we will get our money.

[Rich]

Joe Biden didn't blow up the pipeline, stop listening to conspiracy theories that have been DISPROOVEN.

It was the Russians highly likely so they don't need to pay the fines for not delivering the gas which they themselves CUT OFF before the explosion a week ago. Now they are gonna go to court blaming everyone and stall the fine payments for a decade but we will get our money.

Stop trying to gas light us. I've seen Joe Biden make the threat. I've heard him. Writing things in capital letters won't make it any more true. As if things can be proven when it comes to black operations. The Americans have guzzled through the more of the world precious, easily accessible hydro carbon resources than any nation on earth. They showed they are prepared to start wars and support dictatorships in order to keep the oil price down when they were a net energy producer. We'll take no moral lectures from those hypocrites.

Nor are we particularly inclined to take lectures from Estonia, who have dumped their military crap on Ukraine and then have charged the EU 100% of the cost of massively more expensive replacement kit. Some people are o making a lot of money out of the Ukraine war, the question is who are the suckers that are going to pay for it.

[JohnRawls]

Stop trying to gas light us. I've seen Joe Biden make the threat. I've heard him. Writing things in capital letters won't make it any more true. As if things can be proven when it comes to black operations. The Americans have guzzled through the more of the world precious, easily accessible hydro carbon resources than any nation on earth. They showed they are prepared to start wars and support dictatorships in order to keep the oil price down when they were a net energy producer. We'll take no moral lectures from those hypocrites.

Nor are we particularly inclined to take lectures from Estonia, who have dumped their military crap on Ukraine and then have charged the EU 100% of the cost of massively more expensive replacement kit. Some people are o making a lot of money out of the Ukraine war, the question is who are the suckers that are going to pay for it.

You are a loony toon to believe it. Congrats Rich. You might as well believe that 9/11 was a laser weapon strike from space. It is irrelevant that the airplanes were there and that there was no laser and tech like that is sci-fi.

[Rich]

You are a loony toon to believe it. Congrats Rich. You might as well believe that 9/11 was a laser weapon strike from space. It is irrelevant that the airplanes were there and that there was no laser and tech like that is sci-fi.

You'd be a loony if you just thought that blowing up the pipe line was equivalent to saying 9/11 was an inside job, let alone introducing your ridiculous hyperbole about space lasers.

When a mafia boss threatens someone and then they wind up dead, their guilt is presumed. They don't get innocent until proven guilty, at least in the court of public opinion. Because when a Mafia boss threatens someone and they end up dead, the effect is the same even when they did die from a genuine coincidental accident. You'd like to believe this wasn't done by The US, but you know full well the is may have been done by the United States its just convenient for you and others to gas light us into making out its some far fetched extravagant conspiracy theory.

The United States (and Mossad although I don't suspect them here), do engage in black ops. Yes we hope they've toned things down a bit since the days of MK Ultra, but black ops still go on. I'm not saying they are even always wrong to carry out those operations. And yes I don't doubt the FSB like its KGB predecessor engages in black ops as well and they possibly get up to worse things than the United States.

But in this case there's just no plausible justification for Putin carrying out Biden's dirty work for him. The damage has been done, there can be long term energy security from under sea pipe lines. Eastern European states want the money and leverage that comes from resource pipe lines crossing their territory. Again I think its highly likely that getting a direct land route from Russia to Moldova / Romania, cutting out Ukraine was one thing that Putin was hoping to get out of this war if it had gone better.

[Tainari88]

I see, so the more immigration a nation sees, the eviler it is.

People follow the money. If you notice which nations people want to immigrate to? It is the higher income bracket nations. Without exception. People want job stability and higher pay. That is just logical.

Many think the top reasons for immigrating is about personal freedoms and bullshit of that nature. It usually is about MONEY. For paying for a lifestyle. Period.

Rome used to be a grand city full of the riches accumulated by ripping off a lot of people all over the world. All roads lead to Rome is about that. People moving to Rome to look for the money that was piled up in the coffers of the rich Empires. It does not mean that people hate their places of origin....it means that people are looking for survival above all else.

This Filipino American man has some good points about immigration.