I can think of few things more pathetic than watching the reaction to something like the G20, and seeing regular people cheering for one leader over another.
There are no non-evil major leaders. I see a lot of Merkel praise lately, but this is the woman who destroyed Greece, causing many deaths and much suffering, because she wanted to bail out German banks indirectly, rather than directly. Over 90 percent of the money sent to “Greece” has actually gone back to banks, and the cost has been great misery. Merkel could have just bailed out the banks without harming the citizens.
Merkel is a truly, profoundly, evil person. If you think she isn’t, your moral compass is in your nether regions. Now, of course, like most leaders, Merkel has done some good, even praiseworthy things, but when you kill and impoverish an entire nation because your commitment to your ideology won’t let you just bail out banks directly, you’re evil.
This makes every major decision maker at the IMF evil (and for far more than just Greece) and certainly makes those EU decision makers involved evil.
Putin has many admirers, but he is a bad man, and if you don’t believe it, it is because you don’t want to know.
May is clearly evil. Trump has continued wars he could have and should have stopped. Those of you who love Obama, who is no longer in power, love an evil man, who destroyed Libya for no good reason and expanded and ran a huge assassination program. Macron is scum, he ran Hollande’s economic policy, which was a mess, and he has spent the summer fighting unions. His economic policy won’t work–on the contrary, it will hurt a lot of people. Bill Clinton was scum; his embargo of Iraq cost about a million civilian lives, half of whom were children. He was okay with that.
There are almost no exceptions: Everyone who runs a major country in this period is evil. Generally, there isn’t even a case of being able to say, “Well, they’ve done some bad things, but the good they’ve done outweighs it.” None of them are FDR, where you can say, “That’s clearly evil, but at least he did more good than evil.”
None of these people are your friends. None of them have your best interest at heart. None of them care about your civil liberties, freedom, or prosperity; whether you live or die is a matter of indifference to them. (Well, there is a small class of people they do care about. If you’re one of those people and happen to read me, you know who you are.)
The reason I am behind Corbyn so vehemently is that, for the first time in my life, there is a candidate with a serious chance of running a major power who isn’t “the lesser evil.” Even Sanders was a lesser evil candidate; albeit a heck of a lot lesser. Corbyn was against all the wars. He supports Palestinians, etc, etc. He isn’t perfect, but he’s easily in the “far more good than evil” camp. Note just how much the press and almost everyone else in the elite hates him.
If he gets in power, we’ll see how he does, but at least he has an actual record of integrity and doing the right thing, when he had every reason to believe that it meant he’d never be in power.
None of that is true of Merkel, Trump, Obama, May, etc.
You are their meat. You are their subjects. Your existence matters to them only to the extent you serve their ambition and their ideology, and no more. They have somewhat less care for you than a farmer shows for his cows.
Knowing who has your best interests at heart, who actually cares about you and will act on it, is the most basic human survival skill. We were very good at it back when we lived in bands of 40 to 60 people, but we are terrible at it when living in societies of millions, when we don’t know who everyone is.
We’d best learn, because our failure is costing us dearly, and it will cost us more in the future.
The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.
Cagliostrowned
Farmers generally don’t have millions of cows at their disposal along with the knowledge that no matter how many they slaughter or allow to die of disease there will always be more. Farmers are probably in general at more risk of being kicked to death by their cows, too.
V. Arnold
…his embargo of Iraq cost about a million civilian lives, half of whom was CIVILIANS.
Don’t you mean children?
Ian Welsh
Yes, thanks V.
Chiron
Merkel was promoted by the media after Schröeder refused to be part of the Iraq fiasco. She is part of the Neoliberal/Neocon Elite that sets the agenda in the “West”.
V. Arnold
There Is No Major “Good” Government Leader
That may well be true; we’ve devolved into relative goodness and relative evil. The leader of the pack (for evil) seems to be centered in the U.S.A..
Fortunately we have a “cool hand Luke” in Vladamir Putin; as opposed to a hot head like Erdogon and the reactive elements of the U.S. government deep state.
You (Ian) seem to have a particular hard-on for Putin; blaming anybody (me), who points out his professional statesmanship, as a Putin groupy.
Hardly a balanced view in lieu of the present geopolitical realities on the ground, antagonized by the good old U.S. deep state.
I live in a country that has had 2 military coups (gasp) in the more than 14 years I’ve been here, and frankly; I prefer it to the shame democracy of the faux democratic U.S. and, the shame democracy pre-coup.
Nothing has changed here for me or my family(adopted). I left for reasons; not the least of which was an inability to find meaningful employment at the age of 57, in a field in which I had more than 30 years experience.
And I have healthcare for $12 USD per month. Single payer for all practical considerations.
So, no good major government leaders; poppycock!
Are they evil? Hell if I know; but they leave us alone in their little power struggles; and that suits me just fine.
Good and evil seem to be a thing for you; may I suggest you move on to what is, and not what could be…
It has always been thus…
Stirling Newberry
The definition for great leaders is different from ordinary people – even the best leaders to damage. Rockefeller once said that if he could be right 60% of the time, that would be the most he could hope for.
Unfortunately, most of the world’s leaders fall below 40%, and are trying desperately to make 30%. It does not occur to most people that it is the electorates who are picking the wrong people. They think they are electing at least okay people, when their simply picking people who are like themselves. At the moment this is a bad thing, and it will take some time to realize that scaling up bad people creates bad leadership – but for the moment the people don’t want to believe this.
Then there are things which people do not want, and should not want, except they want them for themselves if they get rich. As the line goes: “The rich are different from you and I.” “Yes, they have more money.” (Fitzgerald-Hemingway in one of their better lines) Most people want what rich people have, the gag is that even rich people can’t have it for very long.
realitychecker
I just hope that all of the evil ones get to die a natural death in bed, surrounded by their loved ones, who will inherit the fruits of all that evilness.
Having written that, I now feel morally superior. Just another “good’ lefty.
It’s worth being stupid to feel morally superior, amirite?
Stirling Newberry
Except, you have not uttered your name. Something only serial killers and crackpots, as well as a few people with something important to say – do. And you haven’t even tried to express one thing which is reasonably intelligent, let alone an act of genius. You are a poor example of the eukaryote kingdom – let alone mammals.
While I may have enormous numbers failings, I have actually increased the sum of human knowledge – you should try it sometime.
realitychecker
Someone is a legend in his own mind lol.
Mallam
Your explanation of Libya is garbage, which treats the Libyan state as if it was just chugging along and Obama just waltzed in and decided “hey let’s send in NATO to topple Gaddafi”. There was a revolution going on, and the head of state decided to react to that by not stepping down, and instead slaughtering his people. Libyans polled approved of NATO intervention, and it was an international framework with France and U.K. taking the lead. Now, one can oppose this intervention for a variety of reasons, but then you need to be honest about what actually happened, the opinions of people on the ground, etc. American exceptionalism isn’t just for right wingers these days, it seems, as ostensible people of the left treat it as if it’s the only factor that matters in international affairs.
Ghostwheel
Libya was destroyed because Gaddafi was trying to create a separate currency and banking system for Africa, one that would potentially allow Africa to develop without massive debt and subsequent punishing austerity. Jihadis were funneled in to overthrow him (a recurring theme). When they couldn’t do the job, NATO sent French and British airpower to assist these jihadis.
Gaddafi also warned Europe of the migrant flood that would be unleashed should he fall from power.
Ian Welsh
Oh, spare the BS. Gaddafi had a good chance of holding on, and overthrowing him produced exactly the end result anyone who wasn’t a moron would have expected — a failed state, with all that attends to. If the US hadn’t wanted the intervention, the US could have put its foot down. Furthermore Clinton told the Russians they did not intend to overthrow Gaddafi, then did.
The forseeable results of actions are something politicians, or any other decision maker, must take.
I mean, this is just after Iraq. What did they think would happen?
There’s a nice summary of how things went from “no fly zone to protect civilians” to overthrowing Gadaffi, by FP, not exactly a left wing rag:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/22/libya-and-the-myth-of-humanitarian-intervention/
And, of course, “no fly zones to protect civilians” are almost always BS. The advantage the govt has is airpower. But the US/France/Britain did far more than that.
Bill Hicks
The latest public opinion polls now show that 58% of Americans now approve of that most evil of 21st century “leaders,” George W. Bush. Which shows: 1). That the media elites’ efforts to rehabilitate him worked like a charm, and 2). That a minimum 58% of Americans are immoral monsters themselves.
Peter
I’m not sure that much good can come from people who brand their political opposition as evil. This quasi-religious branding reeks of secular/partisan bible-thumping with its adherents eyes glowing with the fires of inquisition.
I don’t know much about Teresa May besides her appearing to be a cranky old Tory with weak political skills but is she ‘evil’? She is mov9ng forward to begin the Brexit negotiations demanded by the majority of UK voters in a direct-democracy exercise that will probably never be repeated.
Corbyn the good Stalinist would be blocking or undermining the will of the UK voters while welcoming the trouble that comes with mass refugee immigration. His state capitalism would finance his confiscation of property belonging to anyone he determines is evil as he has already demonstrated.
Alex
Merkel? “nether regions”?
I got a chuckle out of that.
No good government leaders, eh?
Remember when America’s greatest achievements included penicillin and the polio vaccine and the New Deal and going to the moon?
America’s greatest achievements these days seems to be Facebook and Twitter and increasing the number of billionaires from +/- 100 in the 80s/90s to well over 1000 today.
It’s not so much that we have bad leaders; crooks are crooks. Why expect anything else?
But I have to wonder about the people that continue to let it happen.
When Obama started in 2009, there was 80+ million identified by the BLS as Not in the Labor Force; there was 94+ million when he left office.
In the 1930s, there were mass protests about unemployment; today, its barely even noticed.
Bad leaders may be part of the problem, but the US has a docile population that will bitch, moan, groan, and complain, and that’s about it. The most they can envision the problem being is “Republicans” vs “Democrats”.
Americans have no desire to change anything.
Dan Lynch
I am curious why you view Putin as evil? (setting aside Western propaganda about Putin killing journalists and arresting Pussy Riot).
.
It’s my understanding that Putin is a conservative on domestic issues, believes in law and order, respecting traditional issues, balancing the budget, etc.. It’s not my flavor of politics, but that does not make him evil.
.
The worst I can say about Putin is that he does not seem to take global warming seriously — not that we should expect any petro state to take global warming seriously.
wendy davis
My personal favorite Evil of the Week flavor is Bill Gates, Western Imperium Deep State™ leader:
‘Gates urges to abandon generosity, impede migrants from reaching Europe’, July 5, 2017, RT
“During an interview Germany’s Welt am Sonntag, Gates, one of the richest people on the planet, warned of the grave consequences of exceeding generosity towards refugees coming to Europe, whose numbers would only rise unless something is done.” Why are there so many refugees, Barbaric Bill? Yes,let them all drown in the sea, save even funeral expenses. Something so Madeleine Albright-esque about his warning and prescription, isn’t there?
https://www.rt.com/news/395356-migrants-overwhelm-europe-gates/
BlizzardOfOz
@Dan Lynch, yes I’d like to see something concrete too before condemning Putin like that. People sometimes say that he has killed journalists that were critical of him, but there’s no evidence for that (ie, “Clinton kill list” is just as credible). It’s not hard to guess why the liberals and globalists hate him, though.
Separately, here’s an on-topic and very Ian Welshian cartoon: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/neoliberal
Herman
@Alex,
During the Great Depression you had a vibrant Left that was actually able to connect with ordinary people and convince them that the problem was the capitalist system and that only by fighting the powerful as organized workers could they win any victories. The modern Left has become so dominated by identity politics that the old language of the laboring masses vs. the capitalists has been destroyed and replaced by everyone having their own tribe based on race, gender, sexual orientation or whatever.
Today any class-based program is immediately declared “brocialism” as if only white guys would benefit from stronger unions, a higher minimum wage, single-payer health care and a whole host of other reforms that would benefit the vast majority of people no matter what their race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation is. The identity politics Left is now one of the major bulwarks of neoliberalism.
Sorry for the rant, but I am just trying to point out that the reason we have bad leaders is partially because the population is comprised of people who are so propagandized and atomized that they are willing to accept the status quo or at least put up with it. Of course, given the power of technological surveillance including social media it is difficult and dangerous to make political statements since it can get you in trouble. The biggest problem isn’t even government surveillance but surveillance by employers who now monitor their employee’s social media use.
someofparts
Here you go. You’re welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFDND9SRJbs
Ghostwheel
@Wendy Davis: are you aware of what’s going on in Europe because of these migrants?
If the west stops taking them in, they will stop leaving.
Much less expensive and more efficient to help them where they are.
Bill Gates is correct in his recent turnabout.
See:
Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&list=FLCJMQ6RwLJ8BHMIZ_0Fj_ag&index=75
Stirling Newberry
>If the west stops taking them in, they will stop leaving.
That is an absurd assumption.
Ghostwheel
>That is an absurd assumption.
Migrants are heading for Europe expecting to be let in. Open borders encourages this.
Once the news spreads that migrants are being turned back, the people smuggling will dwindle.
V. Arnold
someofparts
July 9, 2017
Here’s a follow-up to your vid; Carlin again with a list of people who should be killed;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVlkxrNlp10
Hilarious…
Ghostwheel
Top Russian Writer Nikolai Starikov Explains Who Is Behind Europe’s Refugee Crisis:
“When Libya was destroyed, it was obvious there would be a big migration wave. Dealing with it is very easy. I’ll offer some free advice to our European partners on how this is done.
“Remember that anyone crossing to Europe is supposedly spending money [to get there via smuggling]. Well, if they have crossed to Lampedusa, then wash them, feed them, let them sleep, then put them on a big white steamship and send them back.
“Question: will they try to cross a second time?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTDlY4o23XA
Mandos
Put them back where? Libya may be a failed state but Terra nullius it is not. Plus refoulement is illegal. I’m afraid the days of the nation state as a political form are numbered. Like any hegemonic political order.
Hugh
“I can think of few things more pathetic than watching the reaction to something like the G20, and seeing regular people cheering for one leader over another.”
I could not agree more. It is like watching a convention of black hats. Just because you don’t like black hat doesn’t turn any of the others in white hats.
And yes, it is possible to dislike Trump, Obama, Bush, Putin, the Clintons, Merkel, Xi Jinping, May, Macron, Erdogan, al-Sisi, Netanyahu, the Saudis, etc. at the same time. It’s about applying the same critical judgment to one and all. The left is as guilty of playing favorites, engaging in tribalism, and suspending the application of equal standards when it is convenient as is the right.
Then too people forget and they engage in relativism. Slick Willy didn’t look so bad when Bush was in office. The Deciderator doesn’t look so awful with Trump around. My view is that each President from at least Clinton onwards has been the worst President in American history until his successor comes along and wins that title.
As George Santayana wrote, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Douglas “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet” Feith disdained and dismissed any knowledge of Iraqi culture, society, and history. Their idea was they would send the US Army in and Iraq would magically turn into a free market paradise. What we got was a textbook case of what happens when you take out a regime’s leader and that regime’s bases of power in the presence of weak to non-existent civil institutions. Iraq fell back on to its sectarian and ethnic components. Fast forward to Libya and Obama and Clinton having learned nothing from Iraq committed the same error there. Remove the leader and that leader’s regime in the absence of any real civil institutions and Libyan society fell back on what remained: its tribes. This was both predictable and predicted. I know I warned of it at the time.
The hoocoodanode defense is often used but it is a cop out. The truth is many people did know, but more importantly our elites not only could have known, they should have known. The truth is they didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered, despite the grave consequences of their decisions. If that is not evil, what is?
Ghostwheel
“No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refuser’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-refoulement
The persons departing from Africa are not political refugees, they are economic migrants. They are not threatened on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
“According to Organization for Migration (IOM), so far this year, more than 50,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by boat; this is up almost 40% on last year by this time. Out of not just these arrivals, but all arrivals over the last 2 years, it estimated that only 2.65% were actually classified as genuine refugees…”
From:
G7 Leaders Ask For Migrant Boats To Be Stopped During Their Visit Because Of Security Concerns – What About the Rest of Us:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/g7-leaders-ask-for-migrant-boats-to-be-stopped-during-their-visit-because-of-security-concerns-what-about-the-rest-of-us/
The appearance of massive numbers of migrants in Europe is not an act of nature, like a volcano erupting or an asteroid striking the earth. They are being allowed to land—and stay—in Europe, as a matter of state policy.
As to who is making this policy and why, Starikov believes it is the United States, rather than the European Union itself. Whichever. The point is: stopping the flow is easily accomplished. What’s laking is the will.
More from the article:
“As the G7 nations met in Sicily to discuss, among other things, what can be done about the mass influx of migrants to Europe and any potential security threat they may pose, they ordered that all migrant boat arrivals be shuffled along to other Italian ports because the arrival of migrants may cause security issues!
“Apparently, they see the arrival of these migrants as a potential threat and therefore do not want them arriving whilst they could themselves be in danger, but ignore the fact that they have allowed hundreds of thousands to arrive unvetted by this route and will continue to allow them long after they have left Sicily. It appears that the lives of ordinary citizens are free to be endangered as long as they themselves remain safe.”
Further down—the Australian method:
“Since the very day Australia announced that anyone who arrived by boat illegally would NEVER be granted the right to stay, the boats stopped coming; and with that, the people stopped drowning ….”
S Brennan
Dunno Ian;
I thought this was kinda a good thing…probably spared 20,000 or so lives.
Your Putin is evil thing…dunno. Would the people of Chechnya be better off under a US/Saudi/et-al imposed Sharia law….uhm…I think you have to make that argument for me to buy in…and so far nothing you have put on the table isn’t what I would have done had I had Putin’s hand to play.
S Brennan
Forgot the link for point #1
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1000/1*hqG9SEmLttISOWUU_CWxXQ.png
Peter
@Ghost
These are useful facts and comments about these migrants and their story. I don’t know who made the comment that the US was behind this increase in migration. This is certainly not Trump’s policy.
Starikov doesn’t seem to want to offend the EU or the European states so blame the US is an easy deflection. This seems to me to be a power play between the EU and the member states over who will rule and who will submit.
These migrants seem to want to go most anywhere in Europe except for Russia, I wonder why.
Different policies can increase or decrease the flow of these migrants but stopping the flow completely is probably impossible it’s been going on since the time of the Phoenicians or longer.
Stirling Newberry
> The persons departing from Africa are not political refugees, they are economic migrants
Incorrect:
https://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/policy-insight-research/insight/tackling-migrations-root-causes
Luis
“They have somewhat less care for you than a farmer shows for his cows.”
That’s unfair to them! most politicians truly and genuinely care about the people they rule… in the same fleas care about dogs.
V. Arnold
S Brennan
July 10, 2017
While we often disagree, S Brennan; on this we’re on the same page; kudos to you.
V. Arnold
Luis
July 10, 2017
LOL; spot on…
Stirling Newberry
> Migrants are heading for Europe expecting to be let in. Open borders encourages this.
Middle term missing. This applies to both economic and political refugees.
Anon
Western Society has created a economic, philosophical, linguistic, and imagistic system which not only allows but encourages psychopaths to rise to the top of the power structure. And that system is called Capitalism. Because the system itself is psychopathic. Only those whose inner being is simpatico with the system can find smooth purchase through the grinding gears. This system will be the death of us all, including the psychopaths who run it, but per the psychological mechanisms of the psychopath, they will choose to off themselves before the rest of us. That is the way of the psychopath. They would rather create their own ‘out’ rather than have something larger than them take them out. This is how the maintain control to the bitter end.
Stirling Newberry
> Western Society has created a economic, philosophical, linguistic, and imagistic system which not only allows but encourages psychopaths to rise to the top of the power structure.
No, but it does seem so on the ass-end of blogs – which are the anus of discourse.
BlizzardOfOz
From Sterling’s article:
It’s those famous “Syrian refugees from Sudan”.
Alex
@Herman
Yep! That vibrant Left was extinguished by the Republicans and the Democrats. It’s funny, in 1948, Truman began his presidential campaign running away from the New Deal; he changed when that didn’t work.
It should be interesting to see how much longer things go before people reach their tipping point. Nobody likes to be poor, struggling, and can’t make ends meet, especially in the land of the gazillionaires.
Maybe the only thing that can do that is a financial meltdown severely worse than the Great Depression.
I wouldn’t trust Sanders or Warren to usher in a new dawn though; Corbyn I would. I’ll work on FDR’s great great great (great) grandson; he may have a change of heart.
Last year, I estimated three things:
1.) From 2000-16, the cost of tax cuts/subsidies/corporate welfare was $38.8 trillion
2.) From 2000-16, the cost of the wars/security/intelligence/NATO/etc, the combined total of both was $38.6 trillion
Redistribution has worked real well as planned.
3.) in 2016, the US was 240 years old and it has spent 469 years fighting wars at home and abroad (some concurrently) since its founding (213 years – 88% of the its life – only 29 years when it wasn’t at war) – the longest war was the Texas Indian Wars which lasted 55 years.
sid_finster
Power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats, or what cocaine is to addicts.
Cobb
Why do I think that if it were the post-Brexit UK whose banks were not casually bailed out by Germany that the UK would be to blame? Oh but not Greece. They’re special.
brian
I’ve been thinking it is a problem of not being able to vote with your feet. The ‘government’ owns the land and you are born into the ‘nation’. You can’t easily say, screw this I am going to move to a neighboring country whose leader I like better. This was original idea of a federation of states but the federal government outgrew the states and now everywhere. The bad government won’t be broken until governments are forced to compete for their citizens and governments are more fluid, i.e. fall and rise – don’t like one you can go create your own. Seems to be a real problem of opportunity costs and stickiness.
Ché Pasa
No major good government leader… is there any government leader anywhere who you can characterize as “good?”
Ghostwheel
@Peter:
The Starikov interview is pre-Trump, 4 October 2015.
I don’t know if Starikov is right as to the identity of the state culprit. It might be EU power-playing as you say, I don’t know. As I see it, his main point is: there is a political actor with an agenda that has left the gates open with the intent to flood Europe with migrants. Not accidental.
The big question is: why would any Western political actor do this?
Starikov, in 2015, concludes that the US is kneecapping its EU rival.
However, if we start with your hypothesis that it is the EU itself, I would conclude that the EU is trying to devastate ethnic-nationalist sentiment in its member states by balkanizing the constituencies of each member state. Less ethnic-nationalist cohesion within a nation would presumably make it easier for a huge transnational organization to get its way over and above the interests of any particular national constitution as its members would therefore be too busy wrangling amongst themselves to offer any effective resistance.
Which perhaps explains why European states with a non-multicultural sense of identity—like, say, Poland—are able to say “no” to the EU diktat.
Willy
It seems the current dogmatic culture preaches that financial and political success can only possibly mean that the successful person is better and brighter than anybody else, and has all the answers for everybody else.
I’m not buying it. I’ve seen how the powers that be become the powers that be, many times up close and personal. They simply have more tools and weapons, not the least of which would include powerful friends in government, working covertly inside whatever form it is that government officially takes. Those kinds of people care the least about the common man. At best, it’s rationalization. At worst, cleverly obfuscating lies.
Theoretically, if that “deep state” system was disrupted, regardless of what the front system is, be it socialist or libertarian, results for the common man would improve dramatically. Only then could a more honest assessment of ‘Which system is better?’, be possible.
Willy
Stirling Newberry,
Describe your experiences with sociopathy in power. If you could detail personal experiences involving negotiation or political combat within a corporate or other political power structure context, so much the better. If you’ve won such battles and have good advice for us, I’m going to be taking you taking you more seriously.
Thus far, you appear to be blowing off that which you have no personal experience with.
Synoia
Europe fought the Muslims from before Charlemagne to one of the Treaties of Vienna, in about 1611.
Spain expelled all non-Christians to unify Spain, and pushed the non-Christians into North Africa in about 1400.
The Eastern Europeans are much more sensitive to the Muslim conversion efforts in Eastern Europe because their experience is about 1,000 years more recent than the Western Europe Muslim conversion invasion.
Now that the West (The US) has decided to stir up, and keep aggravating, the Middle East ants’ nest, especially by its support for Israel for the last 70 years, the Muslims are flooding into Europe, and may try to complete the conversion of Europe to their faith.
I’d expect no less from the Faithful Muslims. That would be my strategy to compete with Christianity, and its Empires, as well.
Muslim unrest and their conversion drive also unsettles Russia (see Chechnya) and China (see the Uyghurs). It is the US’ geopolitical interest to keep those areas of unrest active, and ununifed. Unrest and Ununified (Shia v Sunni) Muslim Nations appear as a goal of US policy in the Middle East.
The US is not directly causing unrest along the Silk Road for Russian and China, but the unrest form the ME spills over.
The Russians are effective in Syria because their goal is to support the Government. The US appears ineffective in Syria, unless one considers that unrest and chaos are the US’ goals.
J’accuse the US of have a hidden objective: Maintain its Supremacy World Wide, and do everything to protect that position.
At one time the US was the manufacturing capital of the world, but its workers got uppity and had to be crushed. Today the US is the fiat currency issuer of the world, that is the World’s Central Banker.
It’s so much more profitable to control people through money, and not have to deal with the pesky US workers.
Hugh
Re migration, the world is falling apart due to overpopulation, climate change, and kleptocracy. Africa, the Mid-East, much of Central, South, and Southeast Asia are already gone. They just don’t know it yet. Wars, famine, and disease are part of this disintegrative process, and migration is another response to it.
Europe under the dictatorship of Germany, the euro, and neoliberalism is also falling apart. Migration just adds to the stresses. And the current wave of migration is really only a trickle to the tsunami that is coming. What happens when a million becomes ten million becomes fifty million? It is easy to be moral, or at least sanctimonious, when you are on a cruise ship and a couple of people are bobbing in the water nearby, but what happens when you are in a ten person lifeboat already carrying fifteen and twenty more want onboard?
The Stephen Miller Band
How dare you compare Putin to Cool Hand Luke. Not even close. He’s a f*cking midget who has bought & murdered his way to respect, whereas Cool Hand Luke was organically charismatic and had no need to murder & purchase. People liked Cool Hand Luke because he was The Real Deal. He was genuine and he didn’t have to work at it. It came natural for him. I love Cool Hand Luke — The Ultimate Anti-Establishmentarian. Great movie in every way. They sure don’t make them like that anymore — and for good reason.
The Stephen Miller Band
Not you Ina. Whoever did upthread. It’s a sacrilege.
Anon
Sterling Newberry: If the comments sections of blogs are anuses then you must have a fetish for the smell of shit because you sure do like hanging around them a lot. And if the system we live in doesn’t create and let psychos flourish, then how do you explain yourself?
Peter
@Sy
I wonder why you and many others completely skip over the biggest change in the history of the US economy that was evident around ’70. The US lost its ability to be a producing nation and became a consuming nation that required many changes and had little to do with pesky unions. When the first major changes began with the shutting down of the US steel industry the unions lost their membership and didn’t have contracts to be uppity about. The countries that were destroyed in WW2 and rebuilt were selling steel from state of the art foundries that out competed our old tired industry.
Our high skill unions still prosper and bargain for higher wages but too many other workers are stuck in low skill low wage service jobs which makes the average wages look even worse. Some of our corporate demons still enjoy tormenting workers but some are more evolved. Trump’s apprenticeship program has identified 5 million good job openings that lack qualified applicants. Smart businessmen are joining in working with people in education and others to fill these needs and put people to work.
Stirling Newberry
> Our high skill unions still prosper and bargain for higher wages
We were still a producer nation, and put your finger on what we made: wars.
Ghostwheel
@Hugh:
Yes to everything you said.
I was thinking of mentioning the climate changes of the future in regard to the European migrant situation, but didn’t want to complicate matters.
Europeans have been criticized for their low birthrates, with oligarchs and their neoliberal suck-ups claiming that Europe therefore needs an influx of immigrants. This is some of the most abysmal thinking I’ve ever encountered.
First, the thinking is entirely linear. Just because there’s an ebb in population growth does not mean it’s going to keep heading that way until it gets to zero. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t later start rising, particularly if policies were adopted to make things less expensive for young people having families. This solution is so simple one is forced to conclude that elites don’t want more Europeans in Europe, they instead prefer Middle-Easterners and Africans.
Second, given climate change, overfishing, and other ecological hardships, a lower European population actually has a lot to recommend it. If it turns out that climate change is not so bad (I doubt that—I agree with Ian, we’re going to burn), proper pro-natalist policies can easily be adopted to reverse the trend.
I’m tempted here to think of Japan. They import 60% of their food. If there’s a climate event and food producing nations decide to keep their own produce, Japan is in trouble. Their famously dealing population is actually a plus given what appears to be the present climatological situation.
Ghostwheel
@ Synoia:
In regard to Muslims and the West, are you familiar with the work of psychologist Nicolai Sennels?
Muslims and Westerners: The Psychological Differences:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/Nicolai_Sennels/Muslims_and_Westerners:__The_Psychological_Differences/
Ghostwheel
Should be: “Their famously DECLINING population is actually a plus given what appears to be the present climatological situation.”
capelin
@ hugh
….disdained and dismissed any knowledge of Iraqi culture, society, and history. Their idea was they would send the US Army in and Iraq would magically turn into a free market paradise. What we got was a textbook case of what happens when you take out a regime’s leader and that regime’s bases of power in the presence of weak to non-existent civil institutions. Iraq fell back on to its sectarian and ethnic components. Fast forward to Libya and Obama and Clinton having learned nothing from Iraq committed the same error there.
Remove the leader and that leader’s regime in the absence of any real civil institutions and Libyan society fell back on what remained: its tribes. This was both predictable and predicted. I know I warned of it at the time.
“tribes”, with various proxy-masters actively repressing the regrowth of real civil institutions, and lots of weaponry sloshing around.
The hoocoodanode defense is often used but it is a cop out. The truth is many people did know, but more importantly our elites not only could have known, they should have known. The truth is they didn’t care and couldn’t be bothered, despite the grave consequences of their decisions. If that is not evil, what is?
it’s not an ongoing bug, it’s an onging feature.
i think cui bono yields the driving meta forces acting on the situations.
the “european refugee problem” being another, related, example.
all very predictable.
@ ghostwheel
euorope and the west has been pillaging and decimating peoples the world over for centuries.
your geo-racist privilege is showing.
@ synoia
The Russians are effective in Syria because their goal is to support the Government. The US appears ineffective in Syria, unless one considers that unrest and chaos are the US’ goals.
J’accuse the US of have a hidden objective: Maintain its Supremacy World Wide, and do everything to protect that position.
exactly.
V. Arnold
@ Synoia
July 10, 2017
Pretty much covers it, from my POV.
V. Arnold
Hugh
July 10, 2017
Re migration, the world is falling apart due to overpopulation, climate change, and kleptocracy. Africa, the Mid-East, much of Central, South, and Southeast Asia are already gone. They just don’t know it yet. Wars, famine, and disease are part of this disintegrative process, and migration is another response to it.
Huh? South East Asia? Just how is this a descriptive of what’s going on here? Doesn’t jive with my ongoing experience here.
Ghostwheel
@ capelin
“Racist, bigot, xenophobe, islamaphobe, anti-semite, imperialist, etcetera….”
Whenever someone uses of these terms, I know they have nothing constructive to say.
>>>>europe and the west has been pillaging and decimating peoples the world over for centuries.
And your answer is what, to turn the game around? Flood Europe with immigrants from alien cultures until native Europeans become a hated and despised minority in their own lands, with everyone impoverished?
How far back in history shall the punishment for violent expansion be extended? If the present generation of Europeans must suffer for their history, shall we make the present day Mongolians suffer for theirs?
What about the Muslim countries? Islam started out as a tiny sect on the Arabian pennisula and spread by conquest. North Africa, Palestine, Syria, Turkey… all used to be Christian, lost to warfare. Shall we have a reconquista?
Gadaffi had one answer: an African development bank separate from the international system that would have allowed Africa to develop without usurious debt and subsequent punishing austerity. Our western elites sent jihadi proxies in to rub him out, which only succeeded with the help of NATO air support.
Are the people of Europe to blame for this? I should think by now that we all recognize that the people of Europe have about as much control over NATO and the U.S. deep state as they do over the orbit of the planet Jupiter.
The answer is not mass immigration in the name of evening out karmic debt. When it comes to the history of Islam and the West, there’s debt on both sides:
* Christopher Hitchens – Barbary Pirates, Muslim Slave Trade and Thomas Jefferson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTFn0ySxs_U&t=3s
* Bill Warner, PhD: Why We Are Afraid of Islam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKdZqtKrBAE
White Europeans did not invest conquest, colonialism and imperialism. The question is: how can all peoples get beyond it?
For starters:
1) Make it clear to these migrants that they can’t come to Europe so that they don’t try to cross the sea and potentially drown, or otherwise end up impoverished aliens in a land that doesn’t want them.
2) Get the banks off the backs of the developing world so that they can live in peace in their countries and Europeans can live in peace in theirs.
The experiement of multicultural mass immigration is a disaster and is generating a growing far-right backlash. Does anybody here journey to the fringes of the net in order to gauge what’s out there, like the growing number people who are concluding that things would be better if, for example, Hitler had won? European countries are continuing to pass ever more vague and strident hate-speech and surveillance laws in order to clamp down on it.
Europe is not and cannot be for everyone.
Is the anti-imperialist left so full of hatred for the west that they want to see the growth of entire parallel societies inside Europe—“no go” areas where Shiara law is unofficially practiced? How long before we have little Belfast-like civil wars breaking out all over Europe where these parallel societies are concentrated?
If this is the future the anti-imperialist left wants to see for Europe, then continue with the multicultural experiment in mass immigration. It solves no problems, and in fact makes them worse.
Once again:
* Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE&t=135s
Hugh
Indonesia in 1950 had a population of 83 million, in 2015 a population of 256 million, and in 2050 projected 300.2 million.
The Philippines in 1950 had a population of 21.1 million, in 2015 a population of 109.6 million, and in 2050 projected 172 million.
Vietnam in 1950 had a population of 25.3 million, in 2015 a population of 94.3 million, and in 2050 projected 111.2 million.
Burma in 1950 had a population of 19.5 million, in 2015 a population of 56.3 million, and in 2050 projected 70.7 million.
Thailand in 1950 had a population of 20 million, in 2015 a population of 68 million, and in 2050 projected 66.1 million.
Malaysia in 1950 had a population of 6.4 million, in 2015 a population of 30.5 million, and in 2050 projected 42.9 million.
Thailand alone is expected to have a population decline from here to 2050, but has a history of political instability and coups. All other states are expected to have substantial increases. At the same time, Himalayan snow melt which fuels most of the region’s river systems is expected to become increasingly erratic and decrease due to global warming. And the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos are already overpopulated, and the Philippines in particular subject to political instability.
Stirling Newberry
https://public.wsu.edu/~mreed/380American%20Consumption.htm
On average, it is US consumers that we should be worried about.
V. Arnold
Hugh
July 11, 2017
Thailand’s population is 64 million and has been declinning for years.
Yes, the Mekhong will likely have decreased flow and that may have a minor effect on Thailand.
With the exception of the N.E., Thailand is a relatively water rich country; potable water is the problem. However; RO has pretty much solved that. As long as it isn’t for desalination, it’s relatively cheap with maximum effectiveness.
As to the coups; meh. Much ado about nothing much.
As I said, I’ve been here through 2 already and the Thai’s are mostly non-plussed.
I don’t live in BKK and had to read the news to know anything happened. Most of the Thai’s I know are very highly educated and just carry on (my wife is a government civil servant).
The U.S. seems most bothered and makes butt ignorant statements re: the coup and, wait for it, democracy.
jackiebass
We don’t have leaders but figure heads. They are quickly scooped up by their handlers and then controlled by them. Elections only take place to pacify the people and make them believe they have a say in government. There is no such thing as a democracy in the real world. you can put lip stick on a pig but it’s still a pig.
V. Arnold
@ Hugh
It’s easy to read “trusted sources” for statistical information about things not experienced.
However, that can never be trusted for many reasons; boots on the ground trump’s all.
I have no trusted sources; only likely sources on the ground who speak the language of the area of interest; which I do, to the point I can travel solo, where ever I choose, here.
You might consider your prejudiced view of “coups”; the western mind has many investments in their view of reality on the ground; and democracy is the hammer of Thor, for the U.S..
U.S. has been waging an information war for more than 70 years; against its own citizens (which you well know) and there is only schooling; no education to be found (that’s been true for more than 100 years[far more]).
So, in the end, your statistics really don’t amount to much…
Ghostwheel
@ Hugh:
The massive birthrates in the developing world, and the low birthrates in Europe, are why a growing number of people are so concerned about Europe’s massive immigration. But to even begin to talk about what that might mean—European replacement—gets you called racist, xenophobe, bigot, islamaphobe, and so forth.
Mass immigration from countries with high birthrates into countries with low native birthrates? Can’t even have a conversation about it without being insulted, told Europe deserves it because of imperialism, and then shuffled off into some far-right Nazi closet.
Yes, let’s keep ignoring the issue and its growing far-right backlash:
* British Nationalism: A New Dawn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8taHjKOJvM&list=FLCJMQ6RwLJ8BHMIZ_0Fj_ag&index=7
Just a fringe now. It’s easy to laugh at them. But what about in five years? In ten years? Do we really want to continue with this experiment and see? Is forced diversity really a strength? Or is it a recipe for social breakdown?
Nobody sees any warning signs? Really?
The Stephen Miller Band
And who’s purpose does Mass Immigration serve, Ghostwheel? Please articulate your response clearly so we can parse whether we’re on The Same Page or not.
I have to laugh, rather than cry, when the people who decry, and have decried, Obama as being a Communist are so emphatic in their support of Putin who was, and still is, a Stalinist Henchman. He tortured & murdered dissidents in both Russia and East Germany on behalf of Godless Communism and now ALL the McCarthyites are squarely in his corner. That is some powerful Black Magic/Voo Doo at play, or else, The Heartbeat of America has always been Communist at heart and McCarthyism was always Pinko Envy.
Ghostwheel
>>>>>And who’s purpose does Mass Immigration serve, Ghostwheel? Please articulate your response clearly so we can parse whether we’re on The Same Page or not.
I mentioned that already in a comment above. While I don’t have an ultimate answer as to why this is occurring—there are probably multiple systemic causes—quoting myself, this is one of my best guesses:
“I would conclude that the EU is trying to devastate ethnic-nationalist sentiment in its member states by balkanizing the constituencies of each member state. Less ethnic-nationalist cohesion within a nation would presumably make it easier for a huge transnational organization to get its way over and above the interests of any particular national constitution as its members would therefore be too busy wrangling amongst themselves to offer any effective resistance.
“Which perhaps explains why European states with a non-multicultural sense of identity—like, say, Poland—are able to say ‘no’ to the EU diktat.”
Under this thesis, the present cultural zeitgeist of multiculturalism, diversity, humanitarian open borders, and so forth, would be propaganda designed to reel in the political sentiment of the public, politicians, and bureaucrats, and align their energies with internationalist, neoliberal ends. It’s a sort of “Forgive them lord, they know not what they do.”
It would be nice, at the very least, if the left could have a conversation about it without using an onslaught of buzzwords that seem solely designed to stop debate (Islamaphobe, racist, etcetera).
The far-right is having conversations about it. Here, for example, are some very effective propaganda pieces. I’m in no way endorsing this, I just people to look at it and discuss what it means:
* Europe – Time to say Goodbye:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjpI6tmIQco&list=FLCJMQ6RwLJ8BHMIZ_0Fj_ag&index=8
* Do you hear the people sing? The rise of nationalism in the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFMH4T7ahqM
These are very effective propaganda pieces.
The people joining these movements aren’t imagining Rabbis killing babies for Satan. They’re pointing out tangible things that are happing in Europe, to Europeans.
A fringe? What about in five years? In ten? Nothing to worry about? They’ve always been there? Carry on with the experiment then.
Again I’m not endorsing this stuff. I voted Cynthia McKinney in 2008, and Jill Stein in 2012 and 2016. I used to have a friend who called me “comrade” because I was so far left (was). But lately, it’s become apparent to me that there’s something very wrong with the multicultural left.
Can’t even talk about it on the left though, without being labeled a racist or Islamaphobe or some such.
The Stephen Miller Band
Ghostwheel, I firmly believe Immigration needs to be seriously addressed & opposed for the right reasons. The problem is, it’s a Politcal Football like everything else so Political Operatives & Apparatchiks co-opt the honest discussion we need to collectively have about this issue.
Immigration fuels the further degradation of our environment and is not sustainable. There cannot be some Immigration even. There can be no Immigration. In this case, because it is so dire, there can be no Half Measures.
Immigration serves the purposes of The Rich and both sides of the Political Divide, which is really no divide at all but rather a feigned juxtaposition, are inculcated & played by The Rich so they win either way.
The Rich use Immigration as a tool to fracture & fragment solidarity amongst The Little People. The Rich also like Immigration because it’s cheap labor.
So, let’s put an end to Immigration for good because it’s helping to destroy the environment at a precipitous & alarming rate, but in doing so, we have to end other endeavors as well like Military Adventurism abroad that destabilizes countries and causes Refugee Crises, not to mention the American Military is a huge polluter that is destroying the environment with its ubiquitous omnipresence.
U.S. Military World’s Largest Polluter – Hundreds Of Bases Gravely Contaminated
Ché Pasa
So. If there are no “good”government leaders, let’s ask if there are any “good” governments.
I’m so old, I remember a time when Utopian imaginings were relatively commonplace features of literature and entertainment. “Lost Horizon.” “Just Imagine.” “Things to Come.” Even “Star Trek.” Etc. Science fiction was filled with Utopianism — along with Dystopianism, to be sure. But it wasn’t just a feature of Science Fiction; Utopianism was a feature of culture and life.
The point is that there was a time, not that long ago, when what had gone wrong with the world and its failures of government (including the major western powers) was thought by many to be fixable, Utopian examples could point the way (flawed though they were), and progress was possible, all it would really take was imagination, unity and will.
If we wanted something better, we could make something better collectively and — if the spirit was with us and willing — wisely.
All that seems to be gone now. Any sense of building a better future is cynically dismissed as nonsense, fraud, deception and lies. We are headed to hell in a handbasket, and that’s all there is to it. We will breed ourselves into extinction, provided the heat doesn’t burn us up first. No government, no leader anywhere can point us onto a different path, and no example of a better way forward exists. The end is nigh, repent.
Or not.
This cynical and nihilist belief system has taken hold to such an extent there seems to be no escaping it. Utopianism, such as it still exists, is, for all intents and purposes, confined to post-Apocalyptic dream-casting, once the earth is cleansed of infidels and contrarians, and The Lord reigns in majesty supreme.
Perhaps objectively there is no “good” government leader, and there is no ultimately “good” government. There is better and there is worse, and we the people, rabble and all, really do have the power to make what’s better a reality.
Jeremy Corbyn can’t make it so, Trump certainly won’t, and our touching faith in Great Men to Lead Us gets us into a worse pickle all the time.
It doesn’t have to be that way…
Stirling Newberry
> I firmly believe Immigration needs to be seriously addressed & opposed for the right reasons.
You must tell us how you picked your parents.
Peter
@Ghost
It’s good to see when anyone resists the conditioning and gatekeeping enforced by the liberal left. There was a time when many people understood that liberals are enemies of the Left but they have coopted and infiltrated so effectively that many on the left are easily led.
It’s difficult to understand what goals the Soros/liberal migration agenda serves and they may not know or care so long as it displays their power and control. There are multiple ‘no go zones’ throughout Europe’s major cities and a phone app is available in Paris to direct people away from these dangerous high crime lost territories.
Illegal migration and the crime it depends on and spreads in the US or Europe seems to be more than accepted by liberal open border advocates pointing to some type of disruptive agenda. The same can be said for their hysterical climate change agenda and their lies and omissions about single-payer health insurance makes me suspicious about that agenda.
The Stephen Miller Band
Stirling & Peter give us both sides of the same coin as it relates to any debate about any issue. Stirling gives us the Neoliberal Side and Peter gives us the Neoconservative Side.
Yes, America is a Land of Immigrants. So what? That was then — this is now. America can always be and will always be, until there is no America any longer, a Land of Immigrants and end still end Immigration once and for all. Because it’s not sustainable. Because Mass Mobilization is murdering the planet above and well beyond Anthropogenic Climate Change.
Peter focuses on “Illegal Immigration” because it’s The Little People. Peter’s just fine with Wealthy Russian & Chinese Shitbirds migrating to America and buying it up, though. Why? Because Peter is a Cowardly Bully who couldn’t win a fair fight if his life depended on it and it would. So, he picks on The Defenseless and supports The Psychopathic Rich in their endeavor to destroy Humanity entirely and all Life on this planet, and other planets if they could, one way or another.
Cujo359
We live in a time of lowered expectations. That’s the key to happiness, I think – make your expectations low enough and you can always find something to cheer about. Yay, Merkel! Go, Vladi!
But then, I’ve been a Phillies fan for half a century. It’s like boot camp for surviving in the absence of hope.
Willy
As long as Peter steadfastly reminds us that the only thing that could possibly be more inescapably wicked than the Red Queen, are the climate change scientists, I’ll know there’s at least some stability in the world.
It’s the little things.
Peter
@Stevie
It’s disturbing what passes for thinking in your syphilitic brain and your decline is probably irreversible. Your identifying with the little people and joining in their victimhood is a snowflake ploy which I didn’t expect from you. The drunk illegal alien who came through my bathroom window with an axe didn’t cringe at my bullying so why should you? The illegal tweaker who came in my back door a while ago bleeding like a stuck pig only responded slowly to my bullying to stop bleeding all over my floor.
Enforcing our existing laws, especially on criminal aliens, is not bullying, it’s common sense.
Willy
The drunk illegal alien who came through my bathroom window with an axe didn’t cringe at my bullying so why should you? The illegal tweaker who came in my back door a while ago bleeding like a stuck pig only responded slowly to my bullying to stop bleeding all over my floor.
Why do you keep employing these people? Be less hassle if you got your ranch help through the local church charity.
subgenius
Stop fucking up other countries and you can start discussing the immigration issue.
Hugh
If Southeast Asia destabilizes and goes down the tubes, it is difficult to see how Thailand can isolate itself from the problems of its neighbors. It certainly cannot insulate itself from climate change. One of the reasons I included the 1950s population data was that it gives some idea of what a sustainable population might be for a given area. So in 1950, Thailand had a population of 20 million. Even if we increase this by a factor of 50%, that only moves us to 30 million, or less than half Thailand’s current population. So even though Thailand’s population is modestly contracting and not exploding like some of its neighbors, it remains that it is heavily and unsustainably overpopulated.
Thailand’s lack of democracy, its oligarchs, and wealth inequality are all red flags but hardly unique to it, but take these in conjunction with its history of coups, and its level of political instability becomes a lot clearer.
Hugh
subgenius, while the US has certainly fucked up its share of countries, it is a mistake to think that they weren’t fucked up before we got there or that with or without us they will remain fucked up long after we’re gone. And this is all before we add in forces like climate change and overpopulation which, in the coming decades, will turn the majority of countries in the world into failed states.
bruce wilder
Ché Pasa
You make some interesting observations. Disney released a 130 minute meditation on the theme of nostalgia for those utopian dreams called Tomorrowland in 2015, with similar implicit criticism of our loss of faith or nihilism.
I do see a connection between the present OP and Ian’s Happy Independence Day post of course. There was a time, as an American patriot, I would have taken exception to that post. In this context, if you cannot narrate a Whiggish past, I doubt it is possible to stare starry-eyed into the future. If you cannot see the great human achievement of the U.S., it is hard to see what comes next as likely to be positive.
For m o st people, though, it is not nihilism so much as complacency that has taken over consciousness and intent, an insistence not on factual or moral truth, but in its place, a churlish insistence on “normalcy”.
I think the purest form of nihilism was political support for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, before and most especially since the election. For those occupying their emotions with Russiagate, Trump is not normal. Somehow, Clinton is normal. We stopped caring about corruption, war, torture or expecting anyone to do the right thing.
Willy
Since the age where ‘government can’t accomplish much of anything’, our astronauts have to hitch a ride on 50 year old technology built by another government. The place they’re going, the ISS, may be an icon of international government cooperation, but it’s also an icon of international government timidity, where going in circles is preferable to actually going somewhere truly awe inspiring. Large ‘government-spectacular’ constructions are being left to countries like China or Dubai.
V. Arnold
Hugh
July 11, 2017
One of the unique things about Thailand is; it has never been colonized; but every country that borders it has been (including Vietnam).
That is a critical thing to know about the Thai history.
This is a huge source of pride among the populace and a tell about its attitude towards its existence.
You hammer away at “democracy” as though it’s the only form of governance; it’s most assuredly not. The fact is Thailand has never really been a democracy; a faux democracy sure; but the real thing? No.
Lao and Kampuchea are for all practical purposes hermit kingdoms weaker by far than Thailand and not democracies.
Myanmar is a very sick state; Ang San Su kyi has shown herself to be a nationalist extrodinaire and refuses to recognise the Rohinga as a legitimate people and refuses to treat them humanely.
I have lost all respect for her; she’s a traitor to her alleged beliefs/ideals.
Vietnam has shown no interest in her neighbors; except as trading partners; but remains a militarily strong country as well.
So, Thailand and Vietnam are the non-aggresive strongmen of S.E. Asia, fully capable of taking care of themselves.
Climate change? We’ll see; things change regardless; how it will affect here, we’ll see.
In the meantime Thailand is fully self sufficient in food production (agriculture) not needing to import any food.
V. Arnold
@ Hugh
Here; this may give you a context for a peek into recent Thai history;
http://www.historyguy.com/wars_of_thailand.htm
Thai history goes back beyond the young, wipersnapper USA, by many centuries.
It’s a facinating study of war and peace dating back to the early bronze age; and even before…
The western proclivity to judge the world by its (very) narrow view of history and values, is unfortunate at best; and tragic at least…
realitychecker
Thailand is a place where a man can buy a buddy a fuck from a child as easily as buying him a beer.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Or with military juntas, I guess./s
DMC
Dude, go back on the meds. You’re going to find yourself standing out in the hall with Comrade Showalter if you keep up the puerile insults.
The Stephen Miller Band
Yeah, Thailand is a Great Place — a Paragon of Virtue. Especially if you’re a guy, unless you’re crippled.
History of Prostitution and Sex Trafficking in Thailand
realitychecker
Because of the prevalence of AIDS, young children are considered to be the safest prostitutes to patronize, so they are sent from the countryside as young as seven years old to participate in the sex industry.
Personally, I couldn’t live in such an environment and still sleep well at night.
I get this info from a close friend who has been doing business in Thailand for 20 years, and just returned from three weeks there.
montanamaven
@ Bruce Wilder
That’s a good way of putting it. They want what is normal for them. My Democrat friends wanted to keep the status quo, so they were “with her”. They are, for the most part, well off so they were not looking for change or disruption. They applaud the local guy who hires Guatemalans who work hard for only $10 an hour while the local New Yorkers want $20. I said, “But they live in Guatemala off season and it’s much cheaper there. A New Yorker needs a higher wage.” The answer is, “But they work harder here so they can be wealthy back there. It’s good for us and good for them. ” I mean what do you say? I make no headway.
V. Arnold
I see the children are off their med’s again…
realitychecker
Got child prostitute?
Better than meds, amirite?
capelin
@ ghostwheel
“Mass immigration from countries with high birthrates into countries with low native birthrates? Can’t even have a conversation about it without being insulted, told Europe deserves it because of imperialism, and then shuffled off into some far-right Nazi closet.
Yes, let’s keep ignoring the issue and its growing far-right backlash:
* British Nationalism: A New Dawn
-snip-
It would be nice, at the very least, if the left could have a conversation about it without using an onslaught of buzzwords that seem solely designed to stop debate (Islamaphobe, racist, etcetera).”
–
well, europe does deserve it because of imperialism past and present, at some abstract level.
the _current political power, freedom of movement, standard of living, etc etc of both western citizenry and western state(s) on the world stage are in large part built, maintained, and projected into the future based on past and current plunder of everyone else.
you talk to any white westerner and they feel entitled to go/live anywhere in the world they want. “maybe i’ll just move to a tropical island”. the germans coming to canada to flee the dirty brown hordes don’t ask the clean noble brown hordes here if it’s ok to arrive. americans are always on about “i’ll move to canada if things get bad down here”. it’s all just taken for granted, unseen.
basically most anyone in the west is a 1% ‘er, globally speaking.
but, hey, it was all stole fair and square and we’re gunna keep it.
–
of course there’s serious issues and concerns with millions of traumatized people on the move, and conflicts with cultures forcefully mixed (they’d rather be back home, just like you, if home was livable). of course there are serious security concerns. and for sure all those impacts are much more focused on europe than here in north america.
i agree with you that it’s difficult to have the needed discussion and analysis of all this, and that there are chunks of it that are no-go zones for the left, and so have been seized upon by the right.
–
for me it comes down to this: if we aren’t able to make our countries stop messing with other peoples countries, then we have no right to stop those other people from escaping the hells that are created.
for starters. then on to justice and reparation.
in canada, i think immigration should be handled by a first-nations-lead entity. they are the only ones here with any cred on the issue.
The Stepehen Miller Band
Reparation will involve America being there, thoroughly entrenched in every way, under the aegis of Humanitarianism. These Freaks have every angle covered. Not to mention, but I will, the reparations will be collected from The Little People not The Rich. Don’t pretend you’re going to get it from The Rich. You never have and you never will so this talk of reparations for anything The Rich have done under the guise of Americans is a bunch of nonsense. I’m sure the reparations would benefit the people most victimized by The Rich’s destabilization efforts abroad. More Swampland in Arizona for sale.
So, effectively, your comment is a vote for the Status Quo. More carnage abroad and more refugee immigrants because no one is willing to do what it takes to change the equation. Voting within the current Political System will not and cannot change the Status Quo. An entirely new Political System needs to be constructed to replace the current one. Washington D.C. can no longer be America’s Capitol. We need a new Capitol. One that isn’t built on a Swamp replete with rats and all manner of vermin. In fact, that should be the first act of non-violent rebellion — the creation of a new Capitol City for the New Political System that is in the works. Build it and they will come.
The Stepehen Miller Band
To be clear. The Rich are not Americans and they do not belong in America. They have used America and Americans as tools to greater wealth & power. Donald Trump has proven this beyond the shadow of any possible doubt.
We The Little People are not responsible for the havoc & carnage The Rich have unleashed upon The World. We are responsible for seeing The Rich for what they are — MONSTERS. And We The Little People have a duty and an obligation to mitigate and prevent any further damage, but that can’t be done until we’re all on the same page.
We The Little People are embroiled in a Class War and we’re losing badly because we won’t recognize it as such. We have The Numbers. The Rich don’t stand a chance if The Little People, instead of f*cking each other over at The Rich’s behest, come together in solidarity & collaboration to exorcise The Rich from Humanity once and for all.
Until that time, if it ever manifests which is doubtful, expect more of the same.