Is such a service possible? Can we transfer our stress to someone else? How much are you willing to pay for such a service? — TheMadFool

Comes to mind the view that a psychiatrist is from one viewpoint a prostitute: he or she gives you as a professional service something that satisfies a need that usually would be given in a functioning intimate relationship with another person. Yet the relationship is made easy as he or she is a professional and you are his or her patient. And you pay for this service.

Yet I think that people that use a porter for their luggage aren't in any way incapable of doing the task themselves if they use a porter. They could indeed use a trolley themselves easily, but if there are people working as porters, let's say on an airport, railway station or in a hotel, they will use the services of a porter as they don't want to look to be parsimonious and understand that porters have low income. So why to be stingy and not pay 5 bucks or so for some ease? After all, you have reserved and hence bought a room in an expensive hotel.

Irrespective of the views of the individuals, science is a secular discipline. It does not depend on the teachings of any church, is not constrained to study and report on that consistent with any church dogma, and does not consider historical texts absolute truth. — Kenosha Kid

And it actually doesn't promote atheism either, even if many draw that conclusion.

It's just a method.

The European Union can be understood as a reconstruction of the Charlemagne empire, which itself was a sort of revival of the Roman empire. — Olivier5

I would disagree.

The empire of Charlemagne needed Charlemagne, just as the Roman empire needed all the victorious Roman generals to create the Roman Empire, from Scipio Africanus to Ceasar and so on. The EU was created after a huge pile of millions of dead after WW1 and WW2, which created a collective thought of "well that didn't work, perhaps we should try something else". Last time similar unification of Europe through force was tried was during WW2.

(Postcard from Vichy-France. One kind of European integration back then...)


Peaceful integration like the EU is something quite rare in history. Perhaps the Kalmar Union in Northern Europe is a similar "accident" which came into existence due to luck and lack of opposition, just like Charles V evidently inheriting a vast number of separate countries thanks to inheriting various crowns. There are example of states forming a union of some sort peacefully, but usually it happens through wars and violence.

But they do not compare in any way to a concept of "State" that is the premise of the discussion — Gus Lamarch

Yet when you raise the question of legitimacy and especially the idea of a successor state, religion and religious positions are important as the secular state is a rather new concept. For example my country has a state church and religion is taught in schools and even the flag has cross in it, just like the other Nordic countries.

But now, ask both of them who they consider the rightfully "Apostolic Roman Church" to see what happens. — Gus Lamarch

Likely they will have a cordial diplomatic response to the question and will avoid being confrontational. Christianity has gone a long way from the wars of religion. Still, it's likely that their flock of followers, those ordinary church goers, who might have antipathies towards the other branch of Christianity. And now there's of course the Protestants and all kinds of other sects.

Secularism has given us evolution and cosmology and this has gone down extremely badly with many religious, especially Christians, especially in America. — Kenosha Kid

Depends how you define secularism. I would argue that using the scientific method doesn't mean that you are a firm proponent of metaphysical naturalism. But of course for those Christians that have problems with evolution or science in general are one type of Christian believers who think they are the true believers and others are perhaps only CINOs, "Christians in name only".

My main question would be about what makes a concept of state legitimate so that it has influence over territories that it does not control, and which moral arguments could claim this legitimacy. — Gus Lamarch

Remember that day in February 27th, 380 AD, when East Roman Emperor Theodosius I with signed a decree in the presence of the Western Roman Emperor Valentinian II of being Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. And even if both the Eastern and the Western part of the empire have collapsed, the Churches lives on. And let's remember that before religion was extremely important to the state and it's legitimacy.

(They have still their job positions. The Pope, the bishop of Rome with Partiarch Bartholomew I, the archbishop of Constantinople. The primus inter pares of the Eastern Orthodox Church and the "Western" Catholic Church are the remnants of the divided Roman Empire in our times.)

what country is that? — Professor Death

Sweden.

Interestingly, wearing a mask and locking down stuff has been a right wing thing in my country. Approx the same death rate as in US and Brazil. The social democrat government said few restrictions, no masks, schools open. Right or wrong? Fuck knows... — Ansiktsburk

Actually the US has now more deaths per million people than Sweden.

Correct to notice that it was the right wing that in Sweden demanded a lockdown, which the government didn't do.

Here it was the right-wing that demanded also tough quarantine measures... and the ruling women from the left-centrist administration agreed. At start of the pandemic, the administration and the opposition reached a consensus on this and now Finland has the lowest amount of corona cases and deaths per million of the Nordic countries. But who knows, maybe it will become worse.

So basically the argument that the lock-down or no-lock-down argument is inherently politically or ideologically motivated is simply nonsense. It really isn't.

How could then Authoritarian left / Economic left be then also rational?

Trump did inherit a strong economy. The economy is no longer strong. Trump failed to produce the GDP growth that he promised. Etc... Where did I say that any president is credited with economic factors and what is your point? — praxis

The economy is nowhere in the World strong. The Corona-slump is universal.

So this isn't his flaw only. One flaw in the future can perhaps be the massive printing of money, but that again is something that Obama and all current US Presidents have done. I think that with the economy Trump hasn't done as much damage as he has done for example bungling up the pandemic response of the US. There he does carry responsibility and a lot.

Just to emphasis this, now Sweden has less deaths per capita than the US, even if they haven't had any lock-down whatsoever. So with a lock-down the US got more deaths, it's really a genuine disaster.

How many times must empiricism be killed? Why won't it stay dead?

It's the Chuck Norris of philosophies! You can't kill that. — Srap Tasmaner

It's not the traditional philosophy of empiricism that prevails, it's more like the actual use of empiricism that survives. And good so. But of course, everything that has good effects has it's drawbacks too.

Bret Weinstein put it remarkably well: in science and STEM fields in general, empiricism has, perhaps unintentionally, acquired a dominant position because that's what is the easy thing to do: scientist do scientific tests. Theorizing, making theories, thinking of the bigger picture which is the more difficult thing to do has taken a sideline. Far more easy to do science with testing something and looking if anything interesting shows up. And this strategy leads, unintentionally perhaps, to empiricism being in the end the dominant philosophy of science left standing on the field.

Here the central bank upped it economic forecast of annual GDP growth from -7% to only -4.9%. Yet that still is a horrific plunge and as the global economy crashes, I think it's hilarious that anybody would be talking about a V-shaped recovery. (Or actually, nobody is talking about a V-shaped recovery...)

The US GDP is estimated to drop something like -3%, but let's see what the reality will be. As Fauci has said (if I remember correctly) that the likely timetable with vaccines etc. would put us in control of the pandemic in middle or late 2021, then you are bound really to have the economy simply to fall to a lower level and then start climbing back.

Far too many people will have lost their jobs for the economy and demand to somehow bounce back up.

To connect to the subject: It is not only in the immigration question Finland has outperformed Sweden this millennia. Also in handling of education, schools, teachers appreciation Finland is famous for its good education while Sweden goes down the drain PISA result wise. — Ansiktsburk

Let's remember that the first huge wave of immigrants and migrant workers that Sweden endured came from here and something well over half a million or so people in Sweden are of Finnish heritage. I've always have thought that the Swedish acceptance to an open doors policy came from this era as influx of foreigners, many of whom spoke Swedish as their mother tongue, didn't create huge social problems, but was great for the economy. Only the last decade with the European migrant crisis that open door policy was changed.

How Sweden changed it's policies:


As there are totally open borders between the Nordic countries (if I would move to Stockholm, the only thing I would have to change my address) you can see that once there aren't huge difference in prosperity among countries, immigration is not in any way a problem and there's not hostility against other Nordic people.

Finnish school system was great few years ago, to the surprise of even of those in charge of the schooling system, but the PISA results has gone down now. The cause is mainly because of budget cutbacks. An interesting thing (noted by a green party member of Parliament) is that the PISA data is gathered only from schools that have also foreign born students, and not all of Finnish origin. Still, if you would look at only schools the capital area, the results would be somewhere close to the Singapore level.

Sweden had Right wing government during the 00-s and some really neo-liberal projects were launched. — Ansiktsburk

Well, still Sweden is the land of European social democracy, where the socialists are happy to milk the cow of capitalism and while they do that keeping the cow in a leash, they do also take care of it that it doesn't die. Right wing rule for some time doesn't change the institutions. It is something that Americans have a trouble to understand, because it's basically what the Bernie Sander's version democratic socialism (a.k.a. social democracy) would be about. It wouldn't result in Venezuela, but Swedenization of the US. Pro's and con's with that alternative, objectives achieved for some, horror for others.

Any pretence of the agreement should be dropped, you go into a discussion hearing someone being appalled by racism and think that's the common ground you can work with but there is in reality very little. What you are against and what the likes of 180 Proof is against are completely different. - However, the idea that identical logic and speech is racist or not racist depending on your skin colour or ethnicity is absurd. — Judaka

And this is why the whole thing is so detrimental.

No? Okay, how about a wedding dress. A black dress would make a statement, of some sort. — praxis

Actually here the traditional bride's dress was black.

You can learn something about Philosophy or other topics, you can check if you make sense (at all) and it's better than wasting your time watching Netflix.

Anti-trump texts are illegal? If so, I’m in big trouble. :grimace: — praxis

You would be, if your job would be, oh, like counter-intelligence, something to do with the military or with the court system and anything remotely linked to Trump or some person linked to Trump would come up. Then praxis, you would part of the conspiracy against Trump!!! :scream:

Racism (again for the slow fuckers way in the back) denotes color/ethnic prejudice plus POWER of a dominant community (color/ethnic in-group) OVER non-dominant communities (color/ethnic out-groups). — 180 Proof

Good that you also included there ethnicity as historically especially in the European context racism hasn't been about skin color as obviously Germans, Poles, Russians, Belorussians, Swedes or Finns are considered to be white, but that hasn't stopped at all racism, racial division, pogroms and genocide. Because I bet if we looked at photos of Poles, Russians, Germans and Finns nobody would have any clue which belongs to the "aryan", the "northern" or the "subhuman / inferior" race as defined some time ago in one European country. And this example isn't made to get some intersectionality points or refer to whites being the victim, but to show how absolutely crazy the whole idea of racism is.

Thus racism and xenophobia can be created between any two groups even if the categories are invented by a third party (like with the Hutus and Tutsi's) as there is absolutely no logic behind racism. It is just invented to fit the current situation. Racism is thinking of some other group of people being inferior, no matter what the defining charasteristics are. Nowdays or in the US context it's skin color.

But that may sound too much like the old definition of racism, perhaps.

Well, old school gun boat diplomacy is something that the US can do.

But that doesn't mean the World has gotten less interventionist. In fact, now it's just an international effort through vehicles like NATO and the UN. A power like Germany is totally incapable of deploying it's troops outside it's border (perhaps only into it's neighbors), but is very active all around the World in various operations.

Or in the African example, groups of nations have put their resources together like the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) has formed the ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) which has sent forces to Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea-Bissau. Nigeria is the largest participant (being the local regional power), so the idea that only European great powers can play "the grand chessboard" is incorrect. And when you think about the African nations involved in the First and Second Congolese Civil War... so-called imperialism isn't anymore only a thing of the West.

(Africans can do it themselves!)

You really can't win either way. If you just try to view individuals as individuals and try to make as few preconceptions as possible, you're racially ignorant or even a racist today. On the other hand, if you view race as central to identity while you could be considered "woke" or "politically correct" your actual day to day interactions with people of other races are going to be really awkward but at least you're woke.

So I've stopped engaging in these types of conversations. — BitconnectCarlos

That's the curse of the post-modernist argument. (And perhaps I should stop too the engagement, because it's not welcome.)

As postmodernism doesn't believe in objectivity (perhaps the only truth is the the postmodernist argument itself), it is designed to be a power-play and a tool to defeat others. This is because of the simplistic argument that post-modernism has: in it's critique it see's "modernism" and universalist ideas like objective reality, science and ideas of the Enlightenment as just power plays themselves forced by a ruling class to maintain power and control. That's the only thing that is true. The Logical consequences is that if everything is then about power and control, then it is so and there really isn't anything else. It's like the conspiracy theorist that thinks everything is pure propaganda and hence will cherish and spread the most offensive, most straight forward and most vulgar propaganda ever as... what else is there? Objectivity and good journalism doesn't exist as everything is propaganda for this conspiracist.

The unfortunate thing is that earlier critics like Foucault did actually know the things they were criticizing (and hence Foucault actually rejected post-modernism and saw himself as a modernist), but the later generation has known only the postmodernist criticism, not the ideas which make up for example the view of the Enlightenment. They simply don't understand the subtle issue of that even if let's say "science" can be used, or abused to justify something that isn't at all an objective observation, but a subjective opinion, that doesn't mean that objectivity in using the scientific method doesn't and cannot exist at all.

Yes, for some countries holding elections is a very difficult thing.

Yep, immortality and eternal youth are two different things.

The Malthusians would be really pissed about immortality, btw. Talk about a problem with the limited resources on this planet.

And even without immortality, but only a longer life span it would be different. Let's say that people would become adults as they do in 18 years or so, but after that they would get older in twice the time as now meaning that a current 30-year old would be an 60-year old, a 50-year old would be 100 years and the oldest people would live well over 200 years.

Not only there would be a lot more people, but think about what our society would be like. Likely the current political leaders of the US would have been born in the 1880's and only some time ago the last soldiers that fought in the Napoleonic Wars would have died. Some old Americans would still remember the time of the Civil War and slavery and many WW2 veterans would be still in the workforce.

So for times to change and people to make the same errors again as previously, we do need generations to die away and new ones to replace them.

If things go as they have gone, then it's likely that the average life expectancy will increase and it's very likely that the present children will live on average to 100 years or so. Not immortality, but better than at the time of our grandparents.

. France and the UK are regional powers, neither is global at present. — frank

Only Superpowers were truly global in their reach as many great powers haven't been even in their hey day truly global (think about Japan, Austro-Hungarian empire or the Ottoman Empire etc.). A regional power would be a country like India, South Africa or Germany as you won't find them operating by their own in other continents. What especially is lacking is the will to do that, which is crucial: A great power nation thinks it's a great power... at least some people in their governments do.

And I think a lot of Africans would disagree with you, especially with the case of France. It still has bases around the World, but especially in Africa. France as the former colonial power basically never left and is very much part of the politics in it's former colonies.

After decolonisation, France established formal defence agreements with many francophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These arrangements allowed France to establish itself as a guarantor of stability and hegemony in the region. France adopted an interventionist policy in Africa, resulting in 122 military interventions that averaged once a year from 1960 to the mid-1990s.

And that hasn't stopped in this Century as the war in Mali and the intervention in Ivory Coast (among others) has shown. France has spread it's forces over the Sahel and at present has a military bases in these African countries:



And the UK? Well, it does have now two fancy new aircraft carriers each capable of operating 72 aircraft as it learned after the Falklands war that scrapping your flat top carriers and hunting soviet subs isn't the only thing to do with your NATO navy. Last intervention on it's own the UK did was I guess to Sierra Leone in 2000, which actually was rather successful as it stopped the civil war there.

(They even have gotten finally the F-35s into trials aboard their carriers!)

This is a wonderful example because it can applied to what we're talking about right now. I'm arguing something and for some odd reason I'm mixing in my ego into what I'm saying. My words have come from my brain, I want to appear "smart", etc. Competitive drive, especially in men- like road rage for example. — dimension72

And I have no clue who you are, where you come, what you feel, so really, my answer is truly generic and really not personal. Here you don't have to be smart, because who is? What you have to do is to oblige with the Forum rules as otherwise if you'll be next to be noticed in "Banned" thread. The administrators are very consistent and logical in their job. Otherwise, as many people have already answered to your thread, that tells you that you aren't totally off and haven't left others so clueless, that they wouldn't bother to answer.

Not caring what others think is very important in life, if you understand the simple guidelines that you don't attack or ridicule people without a truly large and an evident reason (as that may happen sometimes, if rarely does). And notice the obvious: if someone makes a truly nasty ad hominem attack out of the blue, likely he or she has some personal problems or something and others will notice it. That and being laughed at is the fact we fear so much about what others think. Going over it can be difficult, but not impossible.

What's unclear is whether China has now achieved great power status. A sign of that would be the onset of cold war, which is actually a source of global stability. — frank

China has achieved very long ago great power status as we give great power status to Russia, France and the UK too.

What they will never have is similar cultural dominance as the US has. We all speak English: if I would communicate with an African or an Asian, I would likely use English (as I'm not a French speaker, and many of them aren't also).

Don't think that some power will replace the US. After the US there is only a void in it's place.

And that void can surely happen.

To have self esteem is difficult especially if you are young.

And just stick to the logic of your argument and understand that once people feel they can lose face if they lose their argument, they become very hostile in an discussion. Once you understand that, it's far more easy. It really isn't personal.

Oh yes, some of us that go on the "troll" side will easily get over the 1.0 ratio. Assume if there would be someone with a ratio of 10, just what a smart troll he or she would be if he would have his comments in hundreds or thousands?

So that actually tells that actually the ratio doesn't tell much, especially if you are those who basically keep the PF live with active posts.

I think those that have less 0.4 but are active in the Forum, perhaps we should take notice of them. This is a forum for conversation, you know.

Many Whites like to tell Blacks to "get over slavery" & Jim Crow when, in fact, they haven't gotten over their Confederate ancestors losing their slaves and the power to enforce Jim Crow. — 180 Proof

I think they have gotten over losing their slaves.

Perhaps they think that the sins of their great great grandfathers aren't the sins of themselves.

Racists (or sexists) are the ones who feel oppressed by the demand for equality. — 180 Proof

So 180 Proof and Harry Hindu feel oppressed?

I myself have always thought that you can judge individuals, but never larger groups of people especially by their nationality, ethnicity, or race (whatever that means), but perhaps that's not the politically correct way to think about things now as denying the importance of race is racism itself.

1.

:cool: — a guy named Streetlight X

So now I know that those think they are so cool and make silly comments, have to refer to them in a different format.

So is PF going the way of Facebook or what?

We already have had peak conventional oil. So we've seen quite well what it is like.

And I really believe that killing people doesn't make the World a better place.

Been tried a lot of times. Hasn't worked.

That would work. But did you have a particular world population number in mind and a target date to reach it? — apokrisis

What has happened historically in nearly all (if not all) countries is that when the population has gotten more prosperous, population growth has dramatically decreased. And usually the more prosperous countries do take care more about their environment than very poor countries. Peak population could even happen when we live (if we live for a long time from now).

The details matter here. If world population is 7.8b now and we would need to cut it to the 2.5b of 1950 by say 2050 - a COP21 type target - how are you thinking of taking all those folk out of the equation? — apokrisis

What kind of genocidal plans are you thinking about? 2050 is in 30 years. You really would have start a genocide not seen ever in history to get to 2.5b. The Paris Climate Conference wasn't planning killing over 5 billion people. Sorry, but that is totally ludicrous and utterly crazy.

Perhaps Thanos is needed to snap his fingers or what?

Covid is just going to be normalized as something people can just die from. — Maw

For now.

Yet if it really goes away and the World (as is likely) will come back to normal, the pandemic will be seen as a huge event in a few decades from now... assuming a worse pandemic won't hit us in the near future.

With historical events we always give them their importance from the perspective of hindsight and as a stepping stone to the present.

Isreal had formal diplomatic relations with only two Arab states, neighboring Egypt and Jordan, established in 1979 and 1994 respectively. Now we can include UAE and Bahrain. — NOS4A2

You never asked if Israel was at war with Bahrain. — NOS4A2

If I recall that Bahrain or UAE never submitted forces to fight Israel. Saudi-Arabia contributed troops only during the Israeli war of Independence, if I remember correctly. Those who have fought Israel apart of it's neighbors have been Iraq, Libya, Saudi-Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, that I know.

Sensible folk would be planning for a general energy downshift - energy poverty replacing energy abundance.

The good news is that we would only have to get back to 1950s’ levels of individual consumption. — apokrisis

I'm not so sure just how sensible this is. In the 1950's a lot of people even in the West were poor. So the program to save the World is to increase povetry? How well that will go?

The bad news is no one wants to accept a degrowth economics. And if any nations do decide to do the right thing, others will take advantage of the elbow room that creates. — apokrisis

Yet if we reach Peak population and the vast majority of countries have afterwards negative population growth, why then should the economy grow??? Prosperity increases with same level GDP if the population shrinks. What is so wrong with that?

Imagine the German Army converting its tanks and ammunition to green renewables. Are the Russians going to say, OK, we will join your new Carbon zero game? — apokrisis

Replacing 244 tanks, less tanks than in only one Cold War tank division, isn't such a big issue.

Even if a sidestep, here is how the Western armies have become smaller:

Having a sense of community doesn't at all eradicate the fact that people disagree. Any crowd on a march or demonstration will boo things they don't like and applaud things they like, that's for sure. That they listened to what Newsome said is the crucial touching part as listening is sign of courtesy. I don't think that interaction would happen anymore.

So the problem is not necessarily with capitalism itself, but with the fact that there doesn't seem to be some larger value-frame that is strong and independent enough to resist its attempts to influence.

The shop-owners and blacksmiths have taken over the empty castle. — ChatteringMonkey

AHA!!!

Right on the spot, ChatteringMonkey! :up:

And you know why this is? I'll give my opinion:

The utter failure 20th Century collectivist ideologies form both the right and left meant that we stopped thinking of the society as a collective and hedonistic individualism and capitalism were left as the dominant semi-ideology. Why is this so? It's the failure of the collectivist thought.

The bloody right-wing collectivist ideology of fascism was quickly destroyed. And the answer from the left was yet the now totally defunct, nearly genocidal God damn disaster called Marxism-Leninism. That was put to be the answer to capitalism. Such ridiculous juxtaposition meant that indeed we had an empty castle as you said.

Being equals is really divisive... — Benkei

Actually....yes. It is truly meant to be divisive.

(As it turns out, BLM officially disavows this guy, Hawk Newsome, but I don't know the whole history there.) — Srap Tasmaner

There you see how the post-modernist power play works in reality. So why BLM officially disavows Hawk Newsome? Here's the story:

The Black Lives Matter Global Network distanced itself Thursday from an unaffiliated activist whose comments sparked the ire of President Donald Trump, saying the activist was not speaking on behalf of the movement.

Trump lashed out on Twitter after Hawk Newsome appeared on Fox News this week to discuss the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

"Black Lives Matter leader states, 'If U.S. doesn't give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it'. This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!" Trump tweeted.

Newsome made the remarks to "The Story" host Martha MacCallum, who asked him about previous statements he'd made on violence seen in some of the Floyd protests. The activist went on to say that his remarks could be taken "figuratively" or "literally."

He also said he does not condone violence or rioting in response to the death of Floyd, but would not condemn those who do it to express anger over police brutality.

In a statement to The Associated Press, BLM Global Network managing director Kailee Scales said Newsome's comments were not an official statement of the network.

"Hawk Newsome has no relation to the Black Lives Matter Global Network," Scales said.

Newsome is a former president of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, which is not an affiliate chapter of the global network. Although there are many groups that use "Black Lives Matter" or "BLM" in their names, only 16 are considered affiliates of the BLM Global Network.

So not only the hopefully positive video is truly past history, it wasn't even the "official" BLM affiliate speaking. And yes, the above story tells also how close BLM is to the corporate World, so arguments similar to being heard here in PF by some are simply not tolerated. Why? Because as I said, the BLM is very close to the ruling class, as it's message doesn't pose any threat:

The Black Lives Matter movement has sparked an outpouring of more than $1 billion in corporate giving — and launched a wild scramble for the cash among a dozen BLM groups scattered across the country.

Some are for-profit, some are nonprofit but all are positioned to claim big bucks in corporate pledges from companies such as Bank of America, Walmart and Facebook.

Four are already in trouble with the IRS, according to public records.

They show that BLM charities in New York, Vermont, Florida and South Carolina have had their nonprofit status revoked by the IRS for failing to file annual returns.

There’s also confusion among the groups, along with a lack of transparency, which is alarming watchdogs.

Capitalism is all about profit-maximization. — jorndoe

And hence it's not an all encompassing ideology about everything, as it's opponents desperately try to portray it.

I could not agree more. BLM's narrow-minded scope of addressing racism could be expanded to address ALL instances of police brutality and corruption against ALL lives. ALL lives matter doesnt delegitimize racism or black lives, it acknowledges it and adopts it as part of its platform. ALL lives matter is inclusive, while BLM is divisive and segregating. Any opinion other than theirs is racist. — Harry Hindu

It doesn't stop there, not at all, if you look at BLM. In the (official?) website they emphasize:

Our network centers those who have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.

Hence the emphasis on sexual minorities to make the (much needed?) space between "the established" black organizations, which is reinforced following lines:

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

Hence the official BLM isn't, let's say, a great friend of the heterosexual black male believing in traditional values. And this is very notable, because this is, perhaps unintentionally, meant to divide the black community: it's not about systemic racism, it's also dismantling cisgender privilege, where black male himself seems to be the problem. And this is a problem when the whole thing is especially about young black males and their profiling by the police as violent criminals.

This is what makes BLM and the post-modern intersectionality are so splendid for the ruling class: they actively divide the people. When human rights become especially trans rights, that's a very small minority which you can deal, which is great for those in power. The obvious reason is that movements that could unite American people against the two ruling parties are a direct threat to their hold on power. BLM or earlier OWS or the Tea-Party on the other side are not going to challenge anything, but just hopefully get new recruits for the two parties, which especially the Tea-Party movement (earlier those for Ron Paul) got well recruited. And so will happen on the Democratic side too.

If he is tacitly endorsing these energies or outright encouraging them and/or fully cognizant but ignoring them in what he says but somehow nevertheless "striving for peace in what he does" - this seems to me to lead to something like contributing to a more warmongering public in order to get votes whilst playing 11d chess as StreetlightX put it elsewhere — Kevin

You know what. I don't think Trump plays even the two dimensional chess. Too many rules, not interesting.

Trump is really what he looks like, what all the books written about him say in uniform. What Trump understands is how present media works, how to get the limelight fixed on yourself and how a great showman takes over a show. And how to speak to your followers.

That simply isn't 11d chess.

Trump blusters about military strength and then avoids war. That's his style. Ignore everything Trump says, watch what he does. — fishfry

Yep.

And also there's the simple fact that war with Iran is useless and really a bad idea, militarily. There are so many downsides to it and many ways for Iran to make the position of the US miserable, starting from Iraq. Hence no American President has invaded Iran... just like they have not done with North Korea since the armstice.

Of course, someone would say that he simply is the classic bully.

But it's true that we should look at what Trump has done... especially when he had a majority in both houses. Well, a tax cut! Great, and the corona response wasn't the best when compared to other OECD countries. Trump showed there what a president he is during a severe crisis.

But perhaps that doesn't matter so much to the Trump voter. Those criticisms just blend with the more outrageous criticism about Trump. Speaking of Trump as Hitler is just annoying and makes the Trump supporter support his or her president even more, because Trump obviously isn't Hitler. Starting from the lack of ideology.

So really, what is a better person to be the US president? A self centered narcissist who constantly follows what is said about him in the television or a born again Christian who starts quoting the book of Revelation to the French President and really literally starts a war against another country by his own (and neocon) initiative?

Choose which Republican president you like. Perhaps it's the inability of Trump to act on the World stage is something positive. As I recall one American who voted Trump saying: "If Hillary is elected, the media will be her lapdog, whereas if Trump is elected, the media will do it's job it is supposed to do."

So perhaps it's the fear of Kamala being a newborn Hillary that takes power if Sleepy Joe is incapable for some reason or another. So....better vote Trump??? :chin:

Kamala by the way is "terrible" or "horrible" in Finnish.