The truth of the deep leftward bias of all legacy and main stream media — Fire Ologist

The inability to view Fox News as also mainstream media is very telling of you. That media channel would simply have a bias to the right, yet not much else.

You might appreciate this. — Banno

I actually had that in mind.

The whimsical thing is that these talk show hosts (Kimmel, Colbert) don't actually rock the boat in any way. For decades all Republican administrations have gone forward with the normal jabs from the mainstream television talk shows. The liberal bias has been evident, but it has been only a bias as typically any administration gets some roasting from the political comedians. The crude and crass actions that the Trump sycophants take when licking their God-Emperors ass is hilarious and likely to be very counterproductive.

Talking as a Finn who has observed just how Finlandization worked to make people in a democracy to self-censor themselves, this all could be done in a subtle and hidden way that only few would notice it. With these actions it's self evident to all. If the reaction is whatever/meh, how passive are the Americans?

Former U.S. president Barack Obama accused the Trump administration of censorship and hypocrisy following the suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show.

"After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn't like," in a post Thursday to his account on X.

I meant the US. In general.

Sorry, you're from the down under Continent. I forgot. :sad:

The United States elevates free speech in a way not seen in other jurisdictions, perhaps to the point of fetishising it. — Banno

In the Trump era, does it?

I think you have a gone way downhill from the past. And I think the American public discourse and media environment is very ripe to lose all those high minded objectives you say you have and cheriss.

If earlier some "woke agenda" and pressure group made the Corporate America to squeal, then it should not come as a surprise that these people will eagerly throw in the towel when it's the Trump administration is calling for it by making threats.

There are a few factors here that complicate things: Israel and the GHF are distributing massive amounts of food, and naturally, in the course of war, infrastructure will be destroyed, making some parts of the land uninhabitable. - Sure, it's variable. In this situation, the Gaza government hordes food, prohibits its civilians from building wells, and has invested all its funds into concrete underground tunnels instead of infrastructure. — BitconnectCarlos

Do notice that when the US and it's allies fought Al Qaeda and ISIS in large urban areas, there was reports of famine and malnutrition among the civilians. That should tell the obvious. Famines and malnutrition don't usually happen just by accident.

Bringing on a famine is one strategy in war to fight an enemy. And something that has been used in our time too. The Ethiopian army has used it extensively:

(Le Monde, 3/11/2024)That human beings should die massively of hunger in 2024 is scandalous. But that famine should be tolerated, or even used as a political weapon by a government, leaves one speechless. Ethiopia's recent history includes at least two such episodes: in 1973-1974 (between 50,000 and 200,000 deaths), when the tragedy precipitated the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, and in 1983-1984 (between 300,000 and 1 million deaths according to estimates), when famine was used by dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to justify forced displacement and crush rebellions. The terrible situation prevailing today in the northern Tigray region, where local authorities have declared a state of famine − a situation not recognized by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed − can only evoke these sinister precedents.

The articles published by Le Monde bear witness to this. The atrociously murderous − 600,000 dead, according to the African Union − and destructive war that pitted the Ethiopian federal army against the insurgents of the Tigray People's Liberation Front between 2020 and 2022 may have ended militarily in favor of the Ethiopian troops. But it has been prolonged by a terrible food crisis, with abandoned farms, dead cattle and crops at a standstill. Drought and then the destructive rains that followed the armed conflict condemned over 90% of Tigray's 6 million inhabitants to malnutrition.

I just think the strategy is reprehensible and not to be used by an actor that wishes to be in the moral highground.

I am putting it to you that it is not a useful term. Please afford me grace as I clumsily lay out my case.

I’ll emphasize a subtle point that is important to me. There is a fundamental mismatch. The definition pertains specifically to low resolution preferences - and hate is a specifically high resolution preference with high resolution intensity.

Whatever ought to be done about bigotry of all shades, misnaming the problem is a bad start.
And, here, I will just show my cards - I believe the misnaming was a devious tactic rather than good faith misstep.

I also want to admit to a US-centric position on this. Freedom of speech has always been a core principle. That said, I personally think it’s something the US had right. — Roke

So, what do you then think about Osama bin Laden's message? OBL declared that killing even American civilians would be correct and justified for Muslims. This is a quote from the guy from February 1998

We--with God's help--call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson. The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.

And his followers did follow this message quite successfully on 9/11.

So... what other would you call his message above than hate speech? Would you really favor Osama's right to spread this kind of message, because of freedom of speech is a core principle?

This confirms the theory that no one really cares about free speech until it benefits them. — NOS4A2

That's actually how partisan Americans think (as others in other countries). Partisanship has taken such a firm grasp over the discourse. If you do care about freedom of speech and other rights of the individual, democracy or the rule of law, sooner or later the partisans on both sides of the political aisle will hate you and dismiss you. This is because the loyal partisan supporter simply cannot be critical about his or her side.

If the strip is made unlivable due to the war, then it becomes a humanitarian imperative to evacuate civilians. That would turn "genocide" into a humanitarian imperative. :chin: — BitconnectCarlos

Lol.

Well, if the enemy makes the living conditions of the civilians totally unlivable that leads to famine, that's a war crime. That's not inescapable.

You can easily fight the worse suicidal motherfuckers around and NOT have a famine among the civilians and the children. Here I would refer to look at how the US Armed Forces fought Al Qaeda and ISIS. Or to historically to ANY fighting force that has successfully put down an insurgency.

But then of course there's the Mongol Horde. Kill absolutely everybody, every living being, then fake withdrawal and wait for a while and then come check up again if any survivors had somehow escaped the first massacre and then kill these ones. Yeah, that works too. Where they make
a desert, they call it peace, as the saying goes.

The Russians raped and murdered their way to Berlin, yet they are the good guys. — BitconnectCarlos

A bad guy taking out another bad guy don't make him an angel. It was still a totalitarian and imperialist regime, just with a Marxist ideology. Now we just don't have the fig-leaf of Marxism-Leninism anymore, but the monster of a regime is still there.

While Israel is not flawless (no country in war is), it shows much more restraint than the Russians. — BitconnectCarlos

Perhaps. And perhaps we simply shouldn't judge Israel on the level we judge European or North American state, but as a Middle Eastern state.

Yes. The butterfly effects are significant. If the sperm that made me had been just a little slower, then another sperm would have met the egg, so there would have been another person. The butterfly effects also play a significant role in the life of a person, especially when it comes to decisions, since our lives fork at the point of decision. A little like or dislike makes us decide otherwise, so it changes the life of the person and the lives of others as well. A person who comes up with an excellent idea may change the history of humankind. — MoK

But notice the other perspective here: people will likely have offspring. The majority will reproduce. The families aren't going to be as big as earlier.

Hence we don't have to assume an Einsteinian block universe where everything is basically predetermined to happen and stumble into philosophical question about free will.



It's all an issue about just what we define as similar? What if we would have born to our parents as childs of the opposing sex. Surely our experiences and our friends would be different. But what if the only thing would be that our hair would be a different color? Would that mean we would be totally different?

So the issue is here is what do we proclaim to be different and what similar to our existing reality.

What difference would it make if I had not existed? To me, nothing; to others, a lot. — MoK

When the world seems to be full of butterfly effects, starting from our conception (or our parents meeting, or our grandparents meeting), it looks like we have a huge effect. Especially if we have children, who then have children.

But then again, if our parents wouldn't have met, they've likely had met others and have had a family and children with others.

And here comes the fact that this basically is a question of the selected point of view and what we consider a "similar" and a "different" reality from exactly this one.

B) A bomber targeting an enemy weapons factory kills 100 civilians. Of course proportionality is an issue here, but the target is legitimate. — BitconnectCarlos

Do notice that nobody is supporting or justifying the attack done by Hamas, but they are questioning the legitimacy of the objectives of the Netanyahu administration here. And here I think we have the disagreement on just what those end objectives are. Is the objective just to take out Hamas, or is it some kind of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Gaza by making the strip totally unlivable. The ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh did happen and the World didn't do anything, so there's a real world example of this.

Or if you think the latter objective is OK, then we have a true moral and philosophical disagreement.

They are not America's "friend" or neutral Middle Eastern "negotiators." The US apparently has an interesting relationship with them, where we provide their air defenses, though, and carry on some military-strategic pact. Very interesting. — BitconnectCarlos

Qatar has a quite Byzantine diplomacy on the World stage, once they noticed that money talks and bullshit walks. Hence they can play the game just like larger countries do. They indeed are your friends, don't try to deny that, BC. Friends that give your wonderful swamp draining President a executive airliner. Friends like the Saudis (who btw. nearly started a war too with Qatar).

(PBS News) Trump seems to have registered the anger of Gulf leaders. He has distanced himself from the strike, saying it “does not advance Israel or America’s goals” and promising Qatar that it would not be repeated.

Above all, Qatar hosts the largest US military installation in the Middle East. That's the real interest that the US has with the country. Heck, if the negotiations would have been done in the UK or Switzerland, would Bibi have attacked London or Geneva?

So Netanyahu attacked Hamas in Qatar.



Yeah, don't mind the Qataris being allies with the US (a major non-NATO ally) and/or having the role as negotiators.

Bibi has understood that there's nothing that anybody will actually do. Mass starvation and ethnic cleansing of the whole Gaza strip of all Palestinians might very easily be future reality.

So to be fair in our comparisons, we shouldn’t compare the level of political polarization in Belgium or the Netherlands to the U.S. as a whole, we should compare them to states in the U.S. with comparable average lived density, like Massachusetts, Illinois or California. What we find by doing so is that such highly dense U.S. states are no more polarized than their European counterparts, because like those counterparts, a large percentage of their populations are relatively urban and therefore reject strong social conservativism. — Joshs

It's a good point to look at the US as separate states as there's obviously a huge difference between Massachusetts and Wyoming and Alaska.

Yet I'm not so convinced about this. Urbanization might be too general as there are obvious differences between income levels and prosperity between urban dwellers. A place like Massachusetts, which is basically deep Democratic territory, has still it's Republican places:



Now even if we take a large city, we would have similar differences between the rich and poor places. And do notice that especially in Europe in many countries the conservatives haven't gone with the populism similar to Trump.

It's also shrunken some differences. For instance, I've heard the sentiment expressed, and even seen it in op-eds, where bourgeois Americans (or Europeans) claim they have more in common with and feel closer to (more kinship with) other bourgeois from Dubai to Hong Kong then with their fellow citizens outside their socio-economic context. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This might be actually simply globalization, when we all watch the same movies, follow the same TV series and sports and listen to the same music and buy basically the same stuff. Urban life is quite similar as you can go to a McDonalds or a Starbucks everywhere around the world. Few customs are just different, as in the climate. Being a farmer is different way different from that life of an urban consumer. What is a total world apart is when someone is still a subsistence farmer, which means absolute poverty basically.

The dissolution of custom and culture brings with it its own tensions, since there is no longer a "binding together" of ends and identity. To some extent, this is papered over by making pluralism and the destruction of custom its own goal. But this cannot go on forever. Eventually there isn't much left to transgress or destroy except for liberalism and pluralism itself. I think that's pretty much the stage we have gotten to. Once that sort of "call to activism in service to liberalism" is no longer an option (because neoliberalism has won) only the pleasures of epithumia—i.e., sensible pleasures, wealth, and safety—are left to support liberalism. Hence, those seeking thymos (honor, recognition) or any higher logos (as against the emptiness or "decadence" of an epithumia culture) will end up turning against liberalism. I think you can see this in "Woke" and the "Alt-Right." — Count Timothy von Icarus

If people think that the present is dominated by liberalism / neoliberalism, then naturally their critique is against this. But here it should be remembered that what isn't important is the grievance, which everybody can see, but what is purposed to solve it. You will have the "Woke" answer as you will have the "Alt-Right" or the "Populist" answer.

Liberalism or neoliberalism don't eradicate identity. The Swiss have still an identity, even if the country is very liberal and made up of many ethnic groups. Common identity is eradicated by the juxtaposition of us and them. The evil rich, the hostile foreigners and the nasty migrants against the good common people. A juxtaposition of populist and the nativist.

I think the dissolution of custom and culture is hastened when the political field is polarized and there's not much if anything that everybody believes. If the political establishment is incapable of finding any general agreement where they stand for a common cause as "team nation", the destruction of a common idea and citizenship is a true possibility.

I could notice just how different Finnish politics is from US politics. Naturally there's a heated debate about income distribution, taxes and the role of the government in both countries. Yet that is simply normal political discourse. Yet when the Pandemic hit or when Putin assaulted Ukraine, the Finnish ruling administration and the opposition got behind a common policy in no time, which was accepted by the vast majority of the people (in both cases). Especially the discourse during the COVID-pandemic was totally different: in the US the Pandemic just increased the political polarization, which has lingered on still until today. This actually didn't happen in Finland (or Sweden, which went it's own way during the Pandemic).

Rallying around the flag in a time of crisis is very important for social cohesion and for a nation to function properly.

You’ve got it backwards. The polarization wasn't the result of the make-up of the political parties. It was due to the fact that one part of the country, the cities, moved more rapidly into a post ‘60’s economic, social and intellectual way of life than the slower changing rural areas. As a result, people needed to change what the political parties stood for in order to reflect the growing cultural divide. They have now done that. — Joshs

Do notice that this has been an universal transition that has happened in all Western (and other) countries. Yet not all countries have suffered similar polarization. The usual stereotypes in jokes of the city dwellers and rural folk doesn't result in such dramatic polarization. For example, in my country clearly derogatory terms of poor people, like white trash, were used in the 19th Century, but disappeared from use in the 20th Century.

In US politics there was a quite unique event of the two political parties switching their traditional base as the Democratic Party left the traditional white southern voters and the Republicans took them eagerly under their wing. Also the divide from the Civil War era is something notable even today.

60 years ago the republican party was socially moderate , fiscally conservative , supportive of the U.S. as the world’s policeman, and over-represented by wealthy, educated voters. It is now the populist party, is dominated by the poor, lesser educated and working class, is isolationist and socially conservative. — Joshs

The radical transformation of the Republican party is something that has happened quite recently. Perhaps one thing was that the Republicans started fearing that the demographic transition where white Americans lose the majority and minorities would stay loyal to the Democrats made them to choose populism. Or simply Trump and populism took them and they have carried on with the flow.

It’s not the two-party system that promotes toxicity and lashing out, it’s the polarized cultural environment pitting urban against rural. For decades the two parties were quite cordial toward one another and there was much across-the-aisle compromise and consensus. — Joshs

One may then ask, where did the polarization come from? I think one reason is that people are simply dissatisfied about the political establishment and thus many have eagerly taken on populism. And my argument is that the two political parties aren't doing anything to limit the polarization. On the contrary.

Not all is political, I agree. Universally there is this divide between the urban and the rural, but in the US it's especially nasty. The hostility especially against the poor is very telling, as if it's OK and not bigoted for white people to talk in a derogatory manner especially about poor whites. How hillbillies, crackers or white trash are talked about even publicly is quite astonishing.

I have made some polls in some forums, and it was revealed that people who value democracy and liberalism are more prone to agree that the bitcoins are not "ponzi schemes". — Linkey

Notice that everything called to be a "ponzi scheme" isn't one. Social security systems aren't ponzi schemes, even if they will have problems if the younger generations are far smaller than older ones for a while. And governments having the ability to tax their citizens don't make the currency a ponzi scheme.

In a functioning democracy with liberalism is naturally good for cryptocurrencies. And so is when you have institutions that look out for swindlers and other criminals.

Yet we just have to remember that private currencies have been quite nasty earlier in history: think if your employer would give your salary in his made-up company currency, which would be accepted only in the company store and you could rent a place to live only in the company owned flats? How independent would you be? Transparency, convertibility and few legal foundations are what even a cryptocurrency needs. The ultra-libertarian view that no rules are needed and the market itself just works is only a theoretical (and ideological) idea which is has nothing to do with reality.

Is the thumb being lifted from the scale? — NOS4A2

Or is put on the other side now, like with Melania suing Hunter Biden for 1 billion dollars? :lol:

(Might be quite indeed the Melania was handed down from Epstein to Trump. Who knows.)

You seem a little hostile about this. What I told you is just a fact. — frank

Then please refer then to the facts. Have links to studies proving this. Really, I honestly would find that educational and informative for me.

American labor has been competing with foreign labor for decades, and that was by design. It was to cripple American labor unions. It worked. — frank

This is the crucial thing that people get wrong: globalization and income distribution don't go hand-in-hand. German auto industry has been very competitive and produces more cars, yet the labour unions have been very and still are powerful in Germany. The labour policy has been different!

Higher Wages in Germany:
German auto workers are among the highest paid in the world, with some sources citing rates over double the average American auto worker's wages.

Lower Wages in the U.S.:
American auto workers, including those at German automakers' U.S. factories, generally earn lower wages.

Profitability:
Despite higher labor costs, German car manufacturers have historically been highly profitable, indicating that high wages don't necessarily negate profits.

The real problem in the US is in income distribution, not globalization. A lot of issue simply suck in the US, starting from you health care system, and naturally your politicians blame foreigners, because why not? Yet the obvious fact is that not in every Western industrialized country the politicians only work for the billionaires and the rich. Oligarchs won't help the ordinary citizen, they don't think that they have any obligation to do so at the first place.

Ok. I agree. Identity politics makes caricatures of everyone. I hate it. — Fire Ologist

It's not only Identity politics. Political discourse has dramatically changed after people have taken up to use social media. The role of mediators, like newspapers were before aren't there and politicians communicate directly through social media to their followers. This has created a quite toxic environment were people can lash out the way they would never do if publicly they would meet the actual people. Then there's those obnoxious algorithms that simply choose on your behalf just what "news" you get. The most radical views get more traction etc.

I think it was the historian Neil Ferguson who has compared the present change to the invention of the printing machine, which created a huge information revolution ...and also bloody religious wars. Once the monopoly of the Catholic Church was broken and people could read in their own language the Bible, then the role of the priesthood was diminished. At first one might think this was a totally positive change, yet the bloody religious wars fought afterward showed not everything was positive.

And the last issue is American political discourse itself, which promotes and encourages toxicity and lashing out. The two-party system creates an environment where there is no reason to be diplomatic or try to reach out to the other side. In fact, it usually seems that the main argument that both sides give for voting for them is that the other side is so dangerous and will destroy everything good in the Republic. If politicians had to form coalition governments, the discourse wouldn't be so hostile.

I would hope so. That is probably true for many on the left, but I think most leftists think implicit biases and unconscious cultural influences lead non-woke people around by the nose, and that underneath it all, non-woke people want to oppress women and are homophobic and don’t see non-whites as equals. I think many woke people talk this way. — Fire Ologist

I think this more about echo-chambers and people hearing everywhere dog whistles. And it's more that many leftist think that they themselves are attacked by the MAGA crowd.

How else does one think the AE Sweeney ad is anti-woke? — Fire Ologist

But just who is really talking about this commercial? I think the most influential commentator is Donald Trump, who was enthusiastic that Sydney is a Republican. Notice the discourse. Remember the huge discussion about taking the knee with Colin Capernick? It was actually a green beret named Nate Boyer who in my mind smartly advised them to take the knee rather than sit on the bench, which indeed would be quite offensive. Only when Trump got involved on this, then the issue took a life of it's own.

The AE Sweeney ad is 100% Culture War stuff that political parties use to get their supporters interested in politics. The vast majority don't care shit about foreign policy matters or monetary policy decisions, but a thing like talking about some ad, be it Bud Light commercial or a jeans commercial, and the level to comment about them is far lower.

The whole Culture War thing is intended to make us even dumber.

Some points:

- Cryptosceptics aren't in authoritarian countries, on the contrary, authoritarian countries are prone to have problems of inflation and severe limitations on holding wealth in other assets / foreign currencies than the fiat currency of the state. Hence many authoritarian countries people are far more aware of the perils of a fiat currency and love cryptocurrencies.

- The primary argument of cryptosceptics is that there's no actual difference between the fiat currency and a cryptocurrency in the trust in the value of the currency. That there's an finite amount of bitcoin... can you be sure about that? How would a normal person notice a "fake" or "excess" crypto? There has been a collection of swindlers operation in the crypto sphere already.

- Notice the difference for example to gold. The crypto believers argue that actually gold is similar, that it's priced so valuable only because people think it's rare and valuable. Let's think about this for a moment. Let's assume that a kilo of gold (now worth about 106 000 USD) would be priced let's say 10 cents per kilo and hence gold would be far cheaper than copper (which is priced about 9 USD per kg). If so, you bet the inert metal would be used everywhere, starting for example having your home plumbing made of plastic having a golden interior or even the plumbing been made of pure gold. Wouldn't have to renovated for I guess hundreds of years as it gold doesn't rust when in contact with water.

Yet since there isn't so much gold around for everybody to use in ordinary house construction gold, then it cannot be so cheap. The metal does have genuine uses, not just to be a wealth asset.

- And finally, many cryptosceptics are very pessimistic about the state of individual liberties in the present: governments can simply ban the use of cryptocurrencies and when this is made globally without any loopholes, it won't work. The idea of net being a bastion of liberty is extremely naive and even dangerous according to them. Just think if government would make a law saying that holding cryptocurrencies or use of cryptocurrency in any transaction will get you a minimum 10-year jail sentence, would you hold on to your "wealth"? Just change your holdings into the official safe cryptocurrency.

Racism is a deeper problem than white America and white Europe admits.
Homosexual people are not properly respected, ostracized from many institutions, mistreated, harmed and killed, just for being homosexual.
Women still need to fight for equal rights in many situations.

I say all of that and I mean all of that because of the vast reaching influence of wokism. — Fire Ologist

Is it really so?

Because I would think many people, also who are politically in the center and on the right, were agreeing with the above far before the term "woke" was used.

I think many on right, starting from libertarians, would agree with those statements. Above all, does saying the above somehow clash with values upheld on the right, starting from things like private ownership or family values? I would say that it's the leftist distorted caricature of the conservative right that portrays the right being against equal rights for women and against homosexuality. Well, when those topics were first discussed in the 19th and 20th Century, naturally there were conservatives at the time who were for sticking to the old ways, but then again, those times the left was truly for disbanding capitalism at every level and striving for socialism and only disagreeing inside of itself on how socialism would be achieved.

Is the left now preaching the leftist mantra of the 19th Century? Nope, not at all. It's main objective would be just to curve the excesses of capitalism at this stage. In the similar fashion the views on the conservative side have changed. Hence it simply is time for us to put these travesties aside and really look what in general the political sides are saying, not to cherry pick the most outrageous comments that one can find and try to represent these as the common goal of that side. Because when we do so, then we fall into the trap of thinking that people are either "woke" or then "MAGA".

A year ago, if I wanted to start a shower curtain business, my only option would be to make high end ones for a niche market. I couldn't compete with imports to make regular ones.

Now, with tariffs, I can. I can hire workers, reinvest profits to expand into faucets, and eventually bathtubs. I hire more people, reinvest, and the next thing you know, there are fewer fentanyl addicts in my community because there are good jobs for them. — frank

Are you actually in the shower curtain business?

No. Your whole issue is a thought experiment. Yet if you would link to an article on how the shower curtain business is actually making great advances again in Michigan (or where ever), then there would be more credibility to your argument.

You don't want to see this because you're totally bound to anti-Trump. — frank

That simply is a lie.

I've praised the American president when there is a reason for it. Hiking defense spending to 5% in NATO is one of those things that wouldn't have happened with Trump and which is a good thing. If the US economy fires up to spectacular successes, I will admit it if that happens. This is the this stupid American way of just putting people into pro- and against camps. Sticking to your party line in a country where the both parties are at fault of this mess, that I don't get.

It doesn't once occur to you that autocracies start with giving the people what they want and need. You've rendered yourself blind. — frank

Rooting now for autocracies, Frank?

On a philosophy forum? Or being ironic?

Autocracies give for themselves. The people are only a tool for them to get what the autocrat, the man in charge, wants. And the first thing, every time, is to maintain the power of the autocrat. The way to do that is hinder every institution that could weaken (or oppose) the power of the autocrat. Hence democratic representation, separation of powers, democratic institutions and so on are an obvious threat to the autocrat and his power. Only fools believe in the idea of the benevolent autocrat who will solve the problems what republic has. But there are ample amount of these kind of fools in every country.

It is not a failure in reasoning to be afraid of nuclear weapons. — boethius

But it is to think that nuclear deterrence doesn't work is wrong.

Nuclear powers keep their nuclear deterrence as the last defence and WILL NOT escalate recklessly with another nuclear power. Just look at Pakistan and India. These nuclear armed powers have now had two military conflicts under their belt when both sides have been armed with nuclear weapons.

In fact, the posturing between NATO and Russia here is a case example: The US / NATO got through the message that if Russia would use tactical nukes in the conflict with Ukraine, NATO air power would attack Russian units and targets in Ukrainian territory. Notice what here was absent: any attack on Russian strategic bases like in the Kola Peninsula etc. Such attack would be actually a huge escalation. The declared limited conventional response was credible enough, even if using nuclear weapons would severely undermine Russia's war (as China wouldn't like this escalation).

I myself have assumed that if Russia really would want to send a message with nuclear weapons, likely they would simply make an underground nuclear test at Novaja Zemlya. This would be observed, would create a panic and a media frenzy, but wouldn't lead to a military response from NATO.

Seems Zelenkskyy played his hand very well in the Oval Office meeting. Media is reporting that he even got a laugh out of Trump - very difficult thing to do, and probably as significant as getting a sign-off, given Trump's character. — Wayfarer

Quite funny when Trump didn't find at first the Finnish President who was sitting in front of him. Trump starts to show his age.

But yes, the Ukrainian president as Ukraine has the backing of Europe. Will that be enough, we'll see.

But the end game here has nothing to do with Trump. US was never going to risk nuclear war over Ukraine — boethius

Lol.

Putin won't risk nuclear war over Ukraine. His nuclear rambling has already paid well off for him.

And this has to do everything with agent Trumpov and how mesmerized he is with Putin. At least now Trump says something negative of Putin, but he still claps for the dictator.

The only legitimate militaristic pro-Ukraine stance would have been sending Western troops into Ukraine to "standup" to the Russians beside their Ukrainian "friends". — boethius

The good pro-Ukrainian stance would have to give them everything they needed right from the start and then also to take seriously the threat that Russia poses and truly start building up European military industry right from the start. To be afraid of Putin's nuclear rattling was the failure. This game has been played in the Cold War already, hence full commitment on your ally fighting the enemy is the correct thing to do.Trump's increase of military spending to 5% has been one of the good things that idiot has done.

Will it, really?

Is it the mythical "domestic manufacturer" whose situation will improve when global trade / foreign competition is stifled?

Well, when it comes to a lot of things, like coffee production, there simply isn't that "domestic growers/manufacturers". But perhaps MAGA people simply hate trade and think they would be better off without the rest of the World. Unfortunately human history says this is totally wrong: trade is the thing that creates prosperity. To forget the billions of consumers and focus on the 300+ million Americans isn't going to create more prosperity.

And how about the American consumer? Fuck him or her.

It's noteworthy that where this Trumpian idea was very much used as a guideline was with many African states. After colonization, they opted for socialism and high trade tariff barriers to "get their domestic production" up and running. Well, all they did was create some (if any) small companies totally dependent on the trade barriers with no way of competing with in the real world. Socialism and state monopolies were of course one thing, but the idea of trade barriers was the same. The whole issue of the "trade barriers to protect your domestic industry" only has worked in history when the true objective has been to get the domestic industry ready to compete openly with global market, hence they haven't been permanent. Otherwise it turns into rotting cancer.

Trump is opting for the rot.

And who cares about the tiny export sector, like farmers, who are going to really feel how Trump's policies hinder them.

Rubio is now saying ‘both sides have to make sacrifices.’ As if Ukraine has not sacrificed enough already. — Wayfarer

As if Putin has made ANY sacrifices towards peace...



On the contrary, Trump is making things quite easy for him!

The problem is, any time anyone gay, non-binary, disabled etc does anything now, it gets labelled as "woke".
Are they supposed to just hide? Like they've had to do for most of the history of Christian and Muslim countries? — Mijin

One has to understand that the whole discourse about anything that involves especially sexual minorities has been hijacked by the politically driven culture war rhetoric. The whole culture war rhetoric spreads simply like a cancer and it dumbs down everything. Just like anything involved with feminism, DEI etc. And this goes both ways.

Referring to "woke" is a sign of this just as if someone argues that some Trump administration policy is "nazi". Or the American Eagle jeans campaign being nazi or whatever.

Try to have a reasonable smart conversation when people are just looking for dog whistles everywhere. It's very hard.

The US economy isn't slowing down, though. Not yet anyway. — frank

The US economy usually grows at around 1.3% in the first half of the year. It makes up for that in the last half. But yes, we're waiting for the full effect of the tariffs. So far, it's not as expected. It's actually a lot closer to what Trump predicted. — frank

Frank, one should remember just how GDP growth is calculated. Imports are subtracted from the equation, meaning that as imports to the US fall and as they now have fallen off a cliff, GDP grows.

Like the first quarter contraction wasn't indicative of a coming recession, the second quarter expansion is not a sign of a booming economy. Both readings have to do with Trump's tariff policy and the reaction to it. In the first quarter, it was a steep increase in imports in anticipation of upcoming tariffs that drove the GDP decline. As imports are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, a surge in imports actually hurts GDP growth, even if only in the short run. Conversely, imports declined at an annual rate of 30 percent in the second quarter, which in turn boosted GDP growth.

see U.S. GDP Growth Bounces Back as Imports Plummet

Now just ask yourself, is truly a huge drop in imports something that makes Americans better off? How about then having absolutely no imports of anything, starting from no coffee from abroad, no foreign cars etc? This would (with everything else being the same) also increase the GDP.

What's the irony of intelligence services simply doing their work?

A sex offender like Trump can easily have 'kompromat' here and there.

So Ghislaine Maxwell got a sweetheart deal, can go off from prison to work, something similar that Epstein himself got the first time in Florida. Well, Trump wished the convicted sex trafficer well and here we see what that well wishing in actuality means in Trumpland.



Trump really has taken the corruption and criminality down to Third World level in the US. That Trump was introduced to his showcase wife by Epstein seems to have hit a nerve too in the White House.

:rofl:

Great one.

Let's see how the talks in Alaska will go.

Not very hopeful as Trump is a very lousy deal maker, and there's still the possibility that Trump pushes Ukraine to a lousy deal and gives everything on a platter to Putin. Not likely, but still a possibility.

Wouldn't be the first time anyway ... — jorndoe

But wouldn't hit the soft spot anymore. Europeans don't take anymore the bullshit tactics as they did earlier.

Good point. If one coherent (whatever that means) interpretation can be produced it seems likely innumerable can be. This will call the legitimacy of all of them into question. There might be advocates of each of them.

This is one logical outcome. However I still intuitively feel that no coherent (whatever that means) translation can ever be produced. — hypericin

The largest outcome naturally is that we aren't alone as a 512-page book with obscure writing doesn't accidentally form just by accident in the universe. The real problem simply is that there's no way of knowing just what "the book" is about or what it is meant for. It can look like to us as a book, but that is the only thing we understand. We can just guess and this makes cracking of any code difficult.

Indeed we had to have the Rosetta stone to finally crack the ancient hieroglyphs. Even before we could assume what they were telling: praising the greatness of the Pharaohs etc. What else do you write in Temples etc? In this case, people would be having argument on just what is the whole function of the "book".

It looks like the military has joined the fray against the drug cartels, just as you predicted. — NOS4A2

Trump is a president that will do what he says.

Hope the US military will collaborate with Mexico, or it will be something like the US going after the Taleban in Pakistan earlier. The worst outcome is if the White House demands something "flashy" to come out of the operation or takes control over the operations, then the US can have another fiasco at their hands.

(BBC) Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected the idea that the US might invade Mexico after news reports suggested Donald Trump had authorized the use of military force targeting drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations in Latin American countries.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with their military,” she said during a daily news conference on Friday. “We cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion. It’s off the table, absolutely off the table.”

* * *

Well, we just saw Ghislaine Maxwell being put into a minimum security prison after Trump's personal lawyer (now top DOJ official) went to talk to her. How convenient.



The Epstein case won't go away. More and more, I think it's really looking to be one historic conspiracy as the link to Israeli intelligence (or part of it) seems realistic. Otherwise Epstein's rise to have the ties that he had would be difficult to understand. And because both parties are involved and the US-Israeli connection is so delicate, likely the thing will be swept under the rug (as it has been now for years). Or then anyone referring to the link is accused to be an anti-semite racist.

I'm not sure how wokeness is different from an agenda of conserving grudges, as if we lost the momentum and are now losing all the gains from the Civil Rights Movement. We've landed back in the 1960s and the only way forward is to demand corporate virtue signaling. I'm detecting a lack of underlying meaning. — frank

What the Civil Rights Movement in the US fought for or labour laws in my view isn't anything to do with woke or wokeism. Just as isn't the shortly lived protests against Israel's actions in Gaza. The proponents of DEI surely might see them as the continuation or those that continue to further these past political struggles, but in fact they are not.

The US has a real political crisis with Trump's actions and is on the road for an fiscal, monetary and economic crisis ....sooner or later.

To effectively critique wokism you have to understand its philosophical underpinnings. — Joshs

The problem with this is that basically "woke" and "Wokism" is defined by those who reject the whole thing. It already is a critique. Many of those then accused of being "woke" never have thought to be "woke" and don't understand what is meant by it. Hence starting to look at the underpinnings is a bit difficult.

For example, Zizek isn't in my view at all woke. Yes, he may be close to post-structuralism in some views, but basically he is just a leftist intellectual who obviously totally clear about the negative aspects of Marxism-Leninism as he was born in Yugoslavia.

Wokism is just a collection of leftist overreactions and eccentricities. That's the actual punchline.

Anyway, when wokism is officially attacked by the Trump administration, the whole issue is beyond stupidity just like with the so-called culture wars. Good luck having an intelligent discussion about the culture wars.

I just love the now Trump is fighting with Rupert Murdoch.

I feel good for the Americans who don't like either of the two political parties running the US. With a hideous sex scandal involving TWO Presidents that represent both parties, It's so hilarious to see how the partisan hacks are incapable of discussing ALL the Epstein client list.

The thing that is different now is the mobility of capital. Companies or not beholden anymore to some place or community, but can shop all over the world and force favourable conditions from governments who are put into competition with each other.

So yes things tend to oligarchy, the question to me seems what kind of oligarchy. — ChatteringMonkey

Actually, the current globalized economy gives a rise to oligopolies.

What Economists love is a Perfect Market with Perfect Competition, which is extremely theoretical and basically only used because of the mathematical easiness of the model. Monopolies usually happen only by a state or government creating a monopoly. A Duopoly (market controlled by two companies) is rare if not nonexistent. Yet an Oligopoly, few large companies and corporations controlling the vast majority of the global market is the absolute norm.

Just pick any industry or service and you will find few giants ...and then local regional small companies. This happens both because of sovereign states are in trade packs, but also because one company/corporation cannot simply control all the markets everywhere. Natural monopolies don't emerge in reality. As the size of a corporation grows, so does all the inefficiencies of a large organization with bureaucracy, red tape, etc.

Once we understand that a globalized economy turns production and services to a market controlled by Oligopolies, then we can understand that the situation gives rise also to oligarchs assuming we have capitalism.

Perfect Competition is only a theoretical device, when you just look at what it would take to have a perfect market and perfect competition. Oligopolies are far more difficult to model.