Off Shore
Off Topic Member
As a fellow leading-edge Boomer who managed to hold on to a few progressive ideals throughout my life I sympathize, but in reality far too many of us drank the corporate Kool-aid and sold out.
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If and while you are still in a "babbling" mood, please allow me to ask a follow-up question:
What is the relevance and dynamic of free markets in the Middle East? And the importance of trading with the West?
(Also in relation to the absence of democracy and/or the rule of law, which I would expect to result, for example, in exploitation and corruption, and in other obstacles to their efficiency for the people.)
The biggest ticket commodity the ME has is oil, but that's limited to a handful of countries. One of the problem with the poorer ME countries is they don't have much to trade with the world.
I have a friend who was importing goods from Egypt and Morocco for many years. She employed a couple of villages making ME style clothing and accessories and it went a long way towards changing their thinking about Americans. After 9/11 it became more difficult to do business with the ME and she eventually shut down the business for that reason as well as some health reasons.
First hand exposure between cultures usually leads to positive evolution of both cultures, especially the less privileged one. Though there are downsides too. The embedding of the Nazi's memes in the ME has it's roots in German archeologists going to the ME in the 19th century.
We think of Islam as being such a fundamentalist religion, but that's really fairly recent. Islamic fundamentalism didn't really get going until after the establishment of Israel.
I see some proposals from Democrats that would be unconstitutional like Warren's wealth tax idea. However, this is a proposal that could be done with a fairly straightforward constitutional amendment that changed one aspect of the constitution. If the will was there to do it, which I doubt.
Some of the most radical wings of the left have come up with unconstitutional ideas, but the difference between the extreme left and extreme right is the extreme left has far more limited power to put their ideas into law.
However the truly anti-democratic (small 'd' democratic, not the political party) ideas are all coming from the Republicans. Bill Barr gave a speech at Notre Dame a few days ago in which he talked about an outright theocracy in the US. Bill Barr is one of a handful of Republicans who believe in the unitary executive theory which claims the president is essentially an unlimited monarch, even though the constitution puts very clear limits on the Executive Branch. A lot of Republican ideas are not just unconstitutional, they cut deep into the theories that underlie this country's ideals.
In the past Democrats have done dirty tricks to cheat in elections, but 99% of the cheating done today is done by Republicans. With the demographics of the US the Democrats can win most of the time with a level playing field, so calling for a level field is in their favor. But on a meta-level what the current Democratic party wants for elections is the right thing under all circumstances.
All over the world extremist ideals are coming to the fore. There is also a generational element. In many countries with multiple political parties two of the top parties are often an extreme right and an extreme left party. The extreme right party is almost always mostly made up of older people and the extreme left are very young. Youth tend to be more liberal than older people throughout history, but it seems more exaggerated now than just about any time in history.
The stresses of immigration seems to be driving this in many countries. The liberal democracy with the least internal strife is Japan which is also the most culturally homogeneous of the world's liberal democracies. Population pressures in the third world are driving people towards the developed countries with small birth rates. Among these countries the US has always been the most multi-cultural, but it's causing strife in the US too.
There are real needs in many of these countries for low paid scut work. Often natives who are unemployed are unwilling to do it, so it falls to immigrants to do this work. The people who are underemployed complain that immigrants are taking their jobs, but they really aren't. How many unemployed white working class people from the Midwest are willing to move to California to pick lettuce? But the perception is that they don't have jobs and more people are moving in and that's a bad thing.
I saw a thing a few weeks ago that in Germany opinion about taking in refugees varies dramatically be region. Chronic unemployment in the former East Germany is still high, while unemployment in the west is very low. The former East German regions have much more resistance to taking in refugees than the west. This is cast as a racism issue, and to some degree it is, but there is a deep economic part to this that nobody is really addressing.
The world is above it's carrying capacity for people. There are parts of the world that would be in instant famine if food imports stopped. We are just able to grow enough food to feed everyone at least a minimal diet, but we're stripping our farm land to do it. As parts of the world develop, this puts further stresses on the system as these people get some money, they buy things, mostly made out of plastic and a lot of that plastic ends up dumped into the local river which flows out to the ocean. A report came out, I think last year, that 90% of the plastic in the oceans comes from a handful of rivers in Asia and Africa. All these extra mouths are also employing factory trawlers that over fish the oceans.
The developed world feels they have enough people and very few immigration advocates think we should go back to unlimited immigration. The arguments are about what the limits should be. The pressures on developed countries will probably increase and could get unbearably big if there is sudden climate catastrophe. What happens if large parts of India or China become uninhabitable or they become unable to grow enough of their own food (a very real scenario as their ground water used for growing crops runs low)?
Norbert
TSLA will win
Correctly identified two groups that shouldn't pay for it. The point is that it doesn't require endless costs or endless socialism. It is an investment with an endless return. Should be much easier to finance.
BTW, seniors like fresh air more than anything, you just have to rub that under their nose.
Norbert
TSLA will win
Probably you didn't mean it that way, but to me this might suggest that we should just completely pull out of the Middle East (once we are independent enough of their contribution to the oil market), since we can't do anything reasonable about anything. Which doesn't sound right. It seems that regarding climate change, there are two common responses: denial (especially on the political right) and resignation/indifference (especially on the political left). This might become another candidate for these responses, now that we are getting used to it, so to speak. However that really doesn't seem a good idea for many reasons. Just one being that dictatorships are usually dangerous for the rest of the world, especially when they need to distract from domestic problems. I generally don't see much hope for "benevolent dictatorships" to be lastingly different.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Not stereotyping- just based on surveys.
BTW, as someone of Indian heritage when I came to this country decades back the first thing that struck me was the indifference to the plight of other age groups. Seniors talking about their children like they were mere acquaintances and the other way round. For someone raised on culture of extended families it was a culture shock. Infact I still can’t wrap my head around it.
Why for eg., why would free college poll so poorly among seniors - after all it helps their kids ! Same for Medicare for all. Bernie has less than 5% support among seniors but over 35% among the young.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Shouldn’t people who benefited most by polluting the earth pay for it ? a.k.a. Seniors.
Anyway - the reality is there are powerful interests happy to pit whites vs POC, young vs seniors etc as long as their taxes don’t go up or their investments don’t suffer. To hell with the world. These are the most selfish, psychopaths that are the real problem.
Norbert
TSLA will win
Avoiding any region of the world is probably not a good idea. Whatever happens to the climate, the world is creaking under too many people. Any significant change in the climate or the ability of any large region to grow or gather enough food would spin a barely balanced situation out of control.
People get ugly when their hungry and/or thirsty. That's not a serious risk in North America or Western Europe, but it could ramp immigration pressures on those places way beyond where they are now. The situation in many parts of Africa and the ME are bad enough that people are willing to risk their lives in very dodgy boats to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. What many illegals go through to get into Europe is more dangerous than what many illegals to the US go through.
An article on the hidden health care tax Americans pay:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...gantic-hidden-health-care-tax-economists-say/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...gantic-hidden-health-care-tax-economists-say/
EVNow
Well-Known Member
OT :
NBC is really bad - how bad ?
They actually had Harvey Weinstein (yes, that upright character) to come on a MSNBC show to criticize Sanders. He even called Sanders sexist (in 2016).
Yarnie on Twitter
EVNow
Well-Known Member
This is not a survey - just an anecdote - still you have to wonder. Also look at the replies. Why are seniors abandoning their children … in a weird twist, apparently racism is thicker than blood.
Sergio on Twitter
Am I wrong to be upset with my family members for supporting Trump instead of Warren or Bernie, when they know that I'm struggling with student debt, and that I need several surgeries but don't have healthcare, and they aren't struggling at all? Honestly, am I wrong for that?
We all know this, but here are some detailed calculations that make sense.
Opinion | We Don’t Need to Raise Taxes to Have ‘Medicare for All’
Opinion | We Don’t Need to Raise Taxes to Have ‘Medicare for All’
EVNow
Well-Known Member
In other news - as suspected, Trump has explicitly authorized ethnic cleansing.
Aaron Rupar on Twitter
Aaron Rupar on Twitter
Referring to Kurds living along Turkish border in Syria, Trump says of Turkey, "they had to have it cleaned out."
And here is the "deal" they have "negotiated" with Turkey. Remember this is for Kurds who have lived in this area of Syria for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.
You have five days to get out of your houses and move away. You have to leave behind all means to defend yourselves. If you aren't gone in 5 days, we bomb your house and kill you.
Rachel Maddow missed an opportunity after discussing briefly that she doesn't know what a TASS (Russian news service) announcement of a joint collaboration of Russian and American cyber-security matters except for tying it to the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin. A double miss because she also had an interview with Andrew Yang and did not ask him about it.
One possible meaning is that there will be many more ways to mess with the 2020 election. What if all of the vote tallying machines are attacked at once? Or, surprise, Trump wins again? Are we prepared for a do over?
One possible meaning is that there will be many more ways to mess with the 2020 election. What if all of the vote tallying machines are attacked at once? Or, surprise, Trump wins again? Are we prepared for a do over?
Yet the House just voted to stay in Syria, an illegal war.
And the only antiwar candidate on the democratic stage was smeared by the NY Times and CNN for being a Russian stooge.
We can afford Medicare for All and everything else when the public stops falling for the propoganda that the MIC, MSM, and intelligence community keep feeding us.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
You wouldn't know it. Where does he stand on pulling out of Syria? The war he was against when Obama went in. I bet he agrees with Trump but he can't say it.
In his defense, I know he is but he is a little too easy on the other establishment Democrats on this topic and ends up toeing the line. Tulsi shouldn't be out there on her own here.
Warning, if you're a Bernie supporter. Which I am. Jimmy Dore, a progressive, rips into him for being too nice.
I don't think she's going to be president nor should she be but I do believe she's doing a service to the Democratic party and steering it in the way that will appeal to the majority of its voters on this topic. It also prevents Trump from campaigning to the left of the Democratic candidate like he did against Hillary.
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