[ckaihatsu]

You are proposing massive change.You need to convince us, and I am not even seeing an explanation that I understand.

Balls in your court.

I "need" to convince you -- ??

Would you like me to re-type everything that's in the F.A.Q., for you personally -- ? Or you could just go to the information, take the time to understand it, and then maybe we'll have something to talk about.

The 'convincing' will come from world events, as with the immigrants that Trump has been killing. What *I* do is more of a 'courtesy', in providing some illustrations and statements that may be helpful for some.

*You* haven't suggested *anything* realistic, just some tinkering with the capitalist system.

[ckaihatsu]

'Capitalism' is not 'Democratic', it never will be 'Socialistic' either, at the fundamental level, neither of them are true to their patronage.

A 'democrat' exercise's choice by how they vote in the expectation of a particular outcome that 'supposedly' , brings the, ' greatest possible happiness to the greatest number of people' .

A 'Socialist' wants to produce the above objectives by arbitrarily deciding how, where, when & whom should have the fruits of someone else's labour through the redistribution of taxes levied on anything that moves.

This is incorrect, and is a pernicious stereotype of socialism as being a Stalinist strongman authoritarian over everything, which is certainly not needed these days -- the major countries of the world have already industrialized. With real, egalitarian socialism the workers of the world could collectively decide how best to industrialize the remaining parts of the world, and to get food and electricity everywhere, etc.

A 'Capitalist' wants to apportion the greatest happiness on himself by charging an excess of what any goods or services cost to produce or sell in order to maximise his profit.

His 'taxpayer' is the customer from whom he levies the 'tax' that will earn him his profit, the customer though, has what neither 'Socialism', or 'Democracy' can provide- choice in where or how & to whom they give their disposable wealth to in return for material or other happiness.

It's best to call this "tax" a 'bribe', since the capitalist has hegemonic control over productive property, like factories. Profits are an additional expense to funding.

What about the *non*-disposable monies that poorer people *have* to exchange for the necessities of life and living -- ? Why does the world society tolerate an economics that impoverishes billions while modern-day productive capacities would readily *wipe out* such privation, given a more appropriate method of distribution for those who need basic things.

The latter case illustrates that the consumer or customer always has the freedom to choose, providing that they have the means to make such choices, that's the fool-proof logical reason to never vote, because, by so doing, you get an expanding state.

So you prefer the voting of dollars over the voting by person. 'Nuff said.

A 'Socialist' government that has only one objective , to extract the maximum taxes from each, whilst 'redistributing' the minimum to the least well-off('Socialism'),in order to maintain the status quo of the ruling 'elite' capitalist class.

This is a flat-out *misrepresentation* -- yes, socialism could very well have its own government, a workers state, but, no, money would not be needed, nor would taxes, because the workers could simply make what they think society needs (preferably aided by empirical information), and the goods / materials produced could simply be claimed by those who need them the most. (That's what my 'labor credits FAQ' addresses, by the way.) There would no longer be a ruling capitalist class because the workers would be the ones making decisions over what gets produced, and what doesn't.

A 'Conservative' type of government, which includes the 'Liberal' flavour, exist only to maintain the capitalist system, for which the resources that it spends are distributed to it's property wealthy 'friends' of the 'elite' type, whether at a personal level, as 'reliefs', lower taxes,or 'tax breaks'.

They then double down on their own version of 'Socialism' towards Capitalism, through every conceivable reduction in business taxes, expanding tax reliefs, inflated public contract prices, bail-outs, 'write-downs' or tax 'gap' that they can get away with, whilst minimising the level of subsistence 'affluence' of the less well-off by using 'austerity' as an instrument in which to wage economic war against the less well-off whom they created in the first place.

One can be an 'apologist' to either side, they are simply two sides of the same coin, both sides have a vested interest in creating a schism between people through the creation of rich & poor.

'Rich and poor' is *okay* as a quick description, but I'll remind that what's *really* at stake is how society produces the things that it needs, and how it disposes of its material surplus. Once the working class has control of the levers of society the use of money would be rendered *superfluous* since exchange values in their totality would no longer be required.

The Tory side want cheap labour for their 'friends', whilst the 'Socialist' want the votes of the poor or less well-off, it's the people that always pay, if you are 'well-off', paying is no object, not so if poor or less 'well-off', for these two groups are never fully compensated for inflation in the capitalist system(caused by government).

You're using 'inflation' in a generic alarmist way without looking at how the various interests would be affected by it -- inflation in the economy would allow the poorer types to *pay off* their debts more cheaply, and it would provide cheap money for investments in real-world production. It's always the *privileged* types who scream 'inflation' because inflation would erode their stores of cached value -- look at Bitcoin, for example, which is a *deflationary* financial vehicle for those who want a castle-wall around their wealth.

At root, all that government does, is 'skim off money from people, either directly or indirectly(as in spending taxes), or business, to spend how it sees fit, it's the people that always pay, not business, because taxes are always passed on to the customer by business & the end user is always a personal customer or consumer.

This, too, is too generic, because you're not looking at *what* the government spends its money *on* -- I'm all in favor of any government -- even capitalist government -- policies that provide for *human need*, like food, transportation, housing, education, energy, etc., but I'm *against* government spending on *warfare*, killing people just so that the global pie gets sliced up a different way.

We do not have a true Laissez Faire economic system, if we had, the state would not bail out businesses or even support them, instead business continue trading each year because the state allows badly run businesses to 'write down' their losses against any taxable gains each tax year, whereas a poor person would just be unable to seek redress for their own financial incontinence.

The western capitalist system is surviving solely on increasing dent which is 'creating' money, the effect is higher inflation, which is being dishonestly reported by governments, in order to reduce compensation payments to it's creditors or those long term liabilities to pensioners or benefit claimants, as a result currency values are being deflated towards the status of ;'fiat' status, as the price of gold would attest.

Actually, you're *incorrect* here -- in the U.S., for example, the economic environment is now, and has been, one of *deflation*, as seen in historically low interest rates (and even *negative* interest rates in parts of Europe).

The starkest issue facing the capitalist class these days is that of *overproduction*, where prices head *downward*, thereby shutting off incentives for spurring further production, and profit-making -- the world is awash in cash and commodity goods yet there aren't enough opportunities for *velocity* in the capitalist economy, and so things just linger on as they are with no real economic growth (GDP).

[ckaihatsu]

Opposing capitalism and socialism is a false dichotomy.

No, it's *not* a false dichotomy because capitalism relies on *exchange values* (commodity production), while socialism *doesn't*. Socialism is full workers' control, worldwide, over what society produces. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

From Anglo neoliberals to European social democrats and the social market economy there is a wide range of market economies that cannot be summarized under the term of capitalism.

If the economy is driven by profit-seeking behavior then it's capitalist, despite whatever flavors of local culture it may exhibit. ('Market economy' = 'capitalism'.)

As to socialism, its advocates pretend that their fantasies could become true irrespective of the horrible track record of the really-existing-socialism. The real world has no use for narcissistic self-indulgent dreamers.

This is cute, given your facile treatment of actual history -- the main example is that of the Bolshevik Revolution, which got *invaded*, and its post-capitalist / soviet economy got wrecked as a consequence:

Allied concerns

The Allied Powers became concerned at the collapse of the Eastern Front and the loss of their Tsarist ally to communism, and there was also the question of the large quantities of supplies and equipment in Russian ports, which the Allied Powers feared might be seized by the Germans. Also worrisome to the Allied Powers was the April 1918 landing of a division of German troops in Finland, increasing speculation they might attempt to capture the Murmansk-Petrograd railway, and subsequently the strategic port of Murmansk and possibly Arkhangelsk. Other concerns regarded the potential destruction of the Czechoslovak Legions and the threat of Bolshevism, the nature of which worried many Allied governments. Meanwhile, Allied materiel in transit quickly accumulated in the warehouses in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk. Estonia had established a national army with the support of Finnish volunteers and were defending against the 7th Red Army's attack.[15]

Faced with these events, the British and French governments decided upon an Allied military intervention in Russia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War

And:

Aims

The goals of the Bolsheviks in implementing war communism are a matter of controversy. Some commentators, including a number of Bolsheviks, have argued that its sole purpose was to win the war. Vladimir Lenin, for instance, said that "the confiscation of surpluses from the peasants was a measure with which we were saddled by the imperative conditions of war-time."[2] Other Bolsheviks, such as Yurii Larin, Lev Kritzman, Leonid Krasin, and Nikolai Bukharin, argued that it was a transitional step towards socialism.[3] Commentators, such as the historian Richard Pipes, the philosopher Michael Polanyi,[4] and economists such as Paul Craig Roberts[5] or Sheldon L. Richman,[6] have argued that war communism was actually an attempt to immediately eliminate private property, commodity production and market exchange, and in that way to implement communist economics, and that the Bolshevik leaders expected an immediate and large-scale increase in economic output. This view was also held by Nikolai Bukharin, who said that "We conceived War Communism as the universal, so to say 'normal' form of the economic policy of the victorious proletariat and not as being related to the war, that is, conforming to a definite state of the civil war".[7]

Results

Military

War communism was largely successful at its primary purpose of aiding the Red Army in halting the advance of the White Army and in reclaiming most of the territory of the former Russian Empire thereafter.

Social

In the cities and surrounding countryside, the population experienced hardships as a result of the war. Peasants refused to co-operate in producing food. Workers began migrating from the cities to the countryside, where the chances to feed themselves were higher, thus further decreasing the possibility of barter of industrial goods for food and worsening the plight of the remaining urban population. Between 1918 and 1920, Petrograd lost 70% of its population, while Moscow lost over 50%.[8]

A series of workers' strikes and peasants' rebellions broke out all over the country, such as the Tambov rebellion (1920–1921). A turning point came with the Kronstadt rebellion at the Kronstadt naval base in early March 1921. The rebellion startled Lenin, because Bolsheviks considered Kronstadt sailors the "reddest of the reds". According to David Christian, the Cheka (the state Communist Party secret police) reported 118 peasant uprisings in February 1921.[9]

Christian, in his book "Imperial and Soviet Russia", summarises the state of Russia in 1921 after years of War communism:

A government claiming to represent the people now found itself on the verge of being overthrown by that same working class. The crisis had undermined the loyalty of the villages, the towns and finally sections of the army. It was fully as serious as the crises faced by the tsarist government in 1905 and February 1917.[10]

Communist officials were paralyzed by the Russian famine of 1921–22 because they could not blame it on the usual enemies. Food was purchased abroad but it all went to cities, not to peasants. Finally Herbert Hoover's offer of $62 million worth of American food and $8 million in medicine was accepted, feeding up to 11 million people. Other outside agencies fed another three million.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_communism

---

To fight about ideologies such as socialism or capitalism is about as useful as a hole in the knee. The social market economy provides pragmatic solutions that can be adapted to all places and situations.

You can spout platitudes all you want, but why can't capitalism actually provide for people's needs -- ??

Global prevalence

In 2012 it was estimated that, using a poverty line of $1.25 a day, 1.2 billion people lived in poverty.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

---

It's by far the most successful model. The problem is that Anglophones are incapable of distinguishing between the effects of the market economy and the effects of the imperial economy. Imperialism and monopoly-capitalism distort the market.

Imperialism and monopolization *are* market capitalism, because capital will always seek-out new markets, as in foreign countries, and it uses the muscle of its military forces to accomplish this. You may not *like* the capitalist state, but it's an *integral* part of the functioning of capitalism and capital markets.

[Stardust]

I liked listening to this debate between my favorite Marxist economist Richard Wolff and a prominent Capitalist expert:

Which of these two you agree or disagree with and why?

I'm definitely with Wolff here, he is ever so clear and to the point. This is how socialism should be introduced and taught to people - tangible and comprehensible. He's great!
Thanks Taina for sharing this video.

[ckaihatsu]

Yes, thanks, Taina, for the thread.

I'd like to point out, though, that Wolff's politics is basically *anarchist*, with its insistence on localist self-sufficiency, post-capitalism.

I just finished a graphic illustration that *critiques* this kind of arrangement / layout, and presents a much better approach:


Emergent Central Planning

[Robert Urbanek]

Saying that capitalism works despite its flaws is like telling a woman her marriage works despite the wife beating.

[ckaihatsu]

Btw, I'll recommend the following talks from 'Democracy at Work', in addition to Wolff's -- these focus more on the *social life* (domestic) aspect of radical-reforms / nationalization, which is what Wolff advocates as well:


Capitalism Hits Home - Capitalism, Socialism and Communism - Part 1

Capitalism Hits Home - Capitalism, Socialism and Communism - Part 2

Capitalism Hits Home - Revolution in the Home and Personal Life - Part 1

Capitalism Hits Home - Revolution in the Home and Personal Life - Part 2

[Rancid]

Which of these two you agree or disagree with and why?

I agree with both. This is often the reality of complex topics. I would argue that we need to stop thinking about how is right and who is wrong, and try to workout the middle ground.

[Tainari88]

I agree with both. This is often the reality of complex topics. I would argue that we need to stop thinking about how is right and who is wrong, and try to workout the middle ground.

Oh Rancid, that is what Salvador Allende wanted. The middle ground. Apply capitalist principles to certain sectors of the economy and socialist ones to the ones in which socialism makes sense. A mixed economy. The issue he had was being pressured out by Kissinger and the right in the USA, who had zero tolerance for any forms of compromise in mineral rich, or rich land in Latin America. The international capitalists don't believe in living wages for Latin American workers, or not dumping and using unethical trading practices on Latin American lands. They want to control and to destroy any real internal betterment. You think they treated Puerto Rico badly Rancid? They treat Latin America extremely bad. How to fix it? You tell me?

You try to reach something logical and the far right for Latin America says NO! Got to kill any form of autonomy of those nations because they got copper, bauxite, gold, silver, coffee, bananas, emeralds, cocaine, marijuana, drugs, land that is beautiful and touristic, fish, etc. We want to control it all and will use death and terror to get our way. A bunch of freaks Rancid. How to cope with them? Figure it out for the reality of the ones who think you got to use both. Because they don't even want that kind of compromise. They want to keep things dysfunctional.

I really hate the American Imperialistic policies in Latin America. How do you stop these people Rancid? You tell me....?

[Rancid]

I really hate the American Imperialistic policies in Latin America. How do you stop these people Rancid? You tell me....?

Latin America has to unite and form a large enough trade block that cannot be ignored, nor pushed around by the US. However, for that to happen, you need more stability and less corruption across each Latin American nation. There are two fundamental things that can help make that happen. Free and high quality education for all, as well as free and high quality healthcare for all. These are things that cannot be left up to capitalism to manage. Of course, the US also likes to work against stabilization, so that's a really hard task to acomplish.

DUnno

The middle ground. Apply capitalist principles to certain sectors of the economy and socialist ones to the ones in which socialism makes sense. A mixed economy.

I think he had it right. I think there are fundamental necessities that should not be left to capitalism free markets. Like food, education, healthcare, and access to the internet and other telecommunications tech (The internet is not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity and not having access, leaves you at a big disadvantage.). However, I think other things are ok, because it can lead to lots of innovation and progress. TO me, it's not an either or, it's a case were I think we could take elements of all different systems and combined them in a way that is synergistic.

[Tainari88]

Latin America has to unite and form a large enough trade block that cannot be ignored, nor pushed around by the US. However, for that to happen, you need more stability and less corruption across each Latin American nation. There are two fundamental things that can help make that happen. Free and high quality education for all, as well as free and high quality healthcare for all. These are things that cannot be left up to capitalism to manage. Of course, the US also likes to work against stabilization, so that's a really hard task to acomplish.

DUnno



I think he had it right. I think there are fundamental necessities that should not be left to capitalism free markets. Like food, education, healthcare, and access to the internet and other telecommunications tech (The internet is not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity and not having access, leaves you at a big disadvantage.). However, I think other things are ok, because it can lead to lots of innovation and progress. TO me, it's not an either or, it's a case were I think we could take elements of all different systems and combined them in a way that is synergistic.

You think a lot like the educated Latin Americans here. But they all say the same thing....the USA works to destabilize, repress and muzzle any kind of progress. Corruption in Latin American means you got to start tightening the fiscal scene with taxes, looking at corporate books and companies, looking closely at how corrupt people move money around. AMLO has done that. I have never seen such screaming and hollering and people going berserk in Mexico with big bucks hating on AMLO due to him saying, "We are looking at everyone's incomes. If your lifestyle doesn't match what you are reporting to the government? We are going to investigate. We need the lack of taxes being paid by the rich to improve education, health care and so on....if we don't get the money? Mexico is not going to improve." The rich Mexicans are screaming. They don't want that kind of scrutiny because they are a bunch of corrupt abusive assholes. The USA corporations hate the AMLO man as well as he says they got to pay their fair share of taxes as well.

The process is slow, hard and you will get opposition. Also? The USA has never liked mutual cooperation between Latin American groups. They love divide and conquer. It works.

But, with time I think things will change in the favor of those who are thinking about progress.

One thing about Latin Americans. We are a very social group of people and we generally are not alienated from each other or our families. A great advantage. You get alienation in a society? You got lack of collective culture. Which makes change a lot harder.

I like that you said, Ï dunno....because Rancid, that is the truth. People feel like the solution is hard. Because the threats are real.

You can never allow yourself to give in to fear. If you do? You never accomplish much.

I improved my life in the end. Was it easy? No. But you can't be fearful if you want improvement. That is like a universal law or something.

[ckaihatsu]

Latin America has to unite and form a large enough trade block that cannot be ignored, nor pushed around by the US. However, for that to happen, you need more stability and less corruption across each Latin American nation.

This is putting your confidence and trust in *the system*, thinking that only if it was cleaned-up, and/or reformed, that it would function as it ought to, for the best outcomes for people. The capitalist machinery is just that, though -- machinery, along with most of its political apparatus ('superstructure').

It's been U.S. imperialism that has encouraged dictator-like behavior on the parts of strongman-type leaders throughout the continent (not to mention North America). I'd say get rid of the *global* dictators, and the dictatorship-type economic apparatus (capitalism), and then we'll have a chance to see an elimination of oppression in Latin America and elsewhere.

There are two fundamental things that can help make that happen. Free and high quality education for all, as well as free and high quality healthcare for all. These are things that cannot be left up to capitalism to manage. Of course, the US also likes to work against stabilization, so that's a really hard task to acomplish.

DUnno

I think he had it right. I think there are fundamental necessities that should not be left to capitalism free markets. Like food, education, healthcare, and access to the internet and other telecommunications tech (The internet is not a luxury anymore, it's a necessity and not having access, leaves you at a big disadvantage.). However, I think other things are ok, because it can lead to lots of innovation and progress. TO me, it's not an either or, it's a case were I think we could take elements of all different systems and combined them in a way that is synergistic.

[Sivad]

TO me, it's not an either or, it's a case were I think we could take elements of all different systems and combined them in a way that is synergistic.

And that's what it's gonna be regardless of the pipe dream fantasies of the ideological zealots. Markets are never going away, private property is never going away, privilege and wealth are never going away, poverty and privation are never going away. All we can do is try to be reasonable and make intelligent compromises that reduce the most outrageous disparities.

[ckaihatsu]

TO me, it's not an either or, it's a case were I think we could take elements of all different systems and combined them in a way that is synergistic.

This is that 'compromising' / politicking kind of mentality, where one thinks that some kind of amalgamation of all viewpoints could somehow be made whole and functional.

This kind of approach ignores that the underlying *logistics* of how production gets done (and rewards distributed) can only happen either one way or another -- either it's controlled by private-property *ownership*, as it is today, with vast income inequalities, or else the *workers* control society's productivity, on collectivized machinery, so that *humanity* can benefit from today's technological prowess.

There's no 'amalgamation' or in-between on this -- it's the workers who *created* the stuff in the first place, anyway, whether machinery or goods-and-services, so it's the workers (and the larger population) who should be the ones to determine how it gets used, with no regard to private claims of 'ownership'.

And that's what it's gonna be regardless of the pipe dream fantasies of the ideological zealots. Markets are never going away, private property is never going away, privilege and wealth are never going away, poverty and privation are never going away. All we can do is try to be reasonable and make intelligent compromises that reduce the most outrageous disparities.

Heh -- people thought slavery and kingdoms were never going to go away, either.

[Rancid]

Heh -- people thought slavery and kingdoms were never going to go away, either.

They haven't gone away.

[Rancid]

And that's what it's gonna be regardless of the pipe dream fantasies of the ideological zealots. Markets are never going away, private property is never going away, privilege and wealth are never going away, poverty and privation are never going away. All we can do is try to be reasonable and make intelligent compromises that reduce the most outrageous disparities.

Yea.

I like the Otto Von Bismarck approach to things. It's better to chase what is practically realistic rather than some ideal that is unattainable.

[Sivad]

Heh -- people thought slavery and kingdoms were never going to go away, either.

They didn't, the institutions were just modified, they didn't go away. There has been some progress but the power dynamics of modern western democracies aren't all that different from what they were 500 years ago. Even in the soviet states you had kings and slaves. It's human nature, it's inescapable. It only ends when the species evolves and so as long as homo sapiens run the world there are always going to be kings and slaves.

[ckaihatsu]

They haven't gone away.

Yup -- which reinforces my (implied) point that social conditions *can* progress, since slavery and kingdoms, for example, have been minimized in world practice, in favor of *wage-slavery* economics instead, and more (bourgeois-type) freedoms and civil rights, won through struggle.

Sivad thinks that societal-civilizational dynamics are static and *unchanging* now -- a reflection of Fukuyama's flawed 'end of history' thesis from the '90s. Revolutionary theory, on the other hand, sees any given civilizational paradigm as being the result of the balance of contending *class* forces, as with the nationalist-imperialist political world of the present. (Proletarian upheavals have only gone so far in recent history, as with the Arab Spring, and outright dictatorship modes are buffeted by struggle from below and bourgeois international geopolitical dynamics.)

[ckaihatsu]

You think a lot like the educated Latin Americans here. But they all say the same thing....the USA works to destabilize, repress and muzzle any kind of progress. Corruption in Latin American means you got to start tightening the fiscal scene with taxes, looking at corporate books and companies, looking closely at how corrupt people move money around. AMLO has done that. I have never seen such screaming and hollering and people going berserk in Mexico with big bucks hating on AMLO due to him saying, "We are looking at everyone's incomes. If your lifestyle doesn't match what you are reporting to the government? We are going to investigate. We need the lack of taxes being paid by the rich to improve education, health care and so on....if we don't get the money? Mexico is not going to improve." The rich Mexicans are screaming. They don't want that kind of scrutiny because they are a bunch of corrupt abusive assholes. The USA corporations hate the AMLO man as well as he says they got to pay their fair share of taxes as well.

---

Acting as a subservient stooge of the Trump administration, AMLO has escalated the assault on immigrants while cynically claiming to protect their “human rights.” In December, his government agreed to violate international law to enact the so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy. This has forced asylum seekers to stay on shantytown tents and makeshift facilities on the Mexican side of the border while their cases process in US courts.

Deportations from Mexico to Central America have tripled under AMLO. He has deported 80,000 workers back to their home countries. Humanitarian visas have plummeted from 11,000 in January to 1,500 in March and almost zero since. After the Trump administration’s threat of imposing a five percent tariff on Mexican goods, AMLO has stated that he wants to be a “friend of President Trump” and pledged “cooperation.” This can only mean agreeing to carry out ever more ruthless attacks on mostly Central American women and children to please Trump’s fascistic base.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/0 ... o-j08.html

[Tainari88]

I don't know why this article is saying that? Because here? The opposite is going on, all I hear and read about is a flood of Central Americans getting visas for refugee status in the immigration offices and I have met many of them personally. I also have gotten groans and complaints about people with wealth being scrutinized.

I think if what you put up there is true? He has reversed that since March of last year. No one likes Trump here, pleasing Trump is not something AMLO wants or any morena official. I think it is like I suspect. AMLO talks pleasingly to the Trump admistration and does something different at home. For me? That is very common in political life here and also just in general regarding the Mexico/USA relationship.

It doesn't jibe with the on the ground realities ckaihatsu at all. There are massive amounts of foreigners from other Latin American nations here. And most of them have either expired visas, no visas or no authorization to stay. I think the source you cited wanted the Central Americans that wanted to stay in the USA to have the right to remain in Mexico indefinitely until the USA concedes asylum. They can stay in Mexico through a legal status that is on display in every immigration office in Mexico.

I read it and I sit next to them in line---the reality is that the Central Americans are making an error thinking that the fascist is going to let them in and they will be granted asylum. Mexico is far more stable than Honduras, El Salvador. I think the time thinking fascist man is going to let them in is over. He is pandering to the racists in the USA and historically leaving their nations thinking international law will be respected by the Trump administration is a pipe dream at this moment in history.