Civilization, in general, hasn't changed much since ancient Egypt or the Roman Empire ...outside of advancements in medicine and technology. But the people themselves are still essentially the same.
I'm not as cynical, Tal. We have come a long way since the days of Egypt or Rome. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Treaty of Westphalia, the Geneva Conventions, the evolution of liberal democracy speak to this. What these photos reveal to me is that we can advance but we can also regress, yield to truly base instincts. Barbarism often lurks beneath the veneer of civilized behaviour. Studies have found that even in the most democratic societies there's always a significant element of "closet" authoritarians who emerge when some charismatic thug - Erdogan, Orban, Trump, take your pick - comes along. Democracy is always in peril to that sort of individual and the followers they awaken.
The only positive about those photos is that hopefully they are being seen by those who still see America as a wonderful land of opportunity instead of the exploitative, neoliberal hellhole it has become. When America collapses immigrants are going to be treated far worse than this, and no matter how bad it is at home, they will be better off if they are not here when it finally happens.
What about responsibility of parents who bring their children along? It is not cheap to reach USA anyway. Last week I heard on CBC radio about migrants shelling out 8k USD. Those supporting economic migrants should pay a full cost of sponsorship for a generation. BTW, where is Soros when we need him?
Karl, despite your criticisms of your homeland I sense that at some level you're still patriotic. I remember a different, better America that, while still deeply flawed, moved gradually but steadily in a better direction. What do you think is needed to get America headed in that direction again?
Anon 3:21. Can you make your opinions more irrelevant? America's migrants from the south actually contribute to the national economy and they always have. There are plenty of layabouts in the US but just not them. And Soros, really?
These ostentatious neoliberals are such empty husks.
Their Fake Virtue is so Fake – cut with decades of corruption producing economic collapse, war and chaos across most of the world, the reemergence of slavery (!), etc. – they no longer even believe in it themselves. Now all they can do is scream at the sky.
They got nothing left – if they ever had any to begin with. Because, after all, their empty-calorie pretenses of virtue are what brought it all in the first place.
You want to learn about the torture of Abu Ghraib ? You have to go back to 1973 Chile. That's when the CIA began inventing modern torture techniques. The upper-class Deep State brought the war on socialism to the Americas to prevent another Cuba. In the tradition of Mengele, they began experimenting on the locals in torture-chamber laboratories.
(See Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.")
This was followed by the war on drugs. Which, coincidentally enough, produced a flood of mass migration into America. (Their war on terrorism – i.e., kill them all and let God sort it out – produced a flood of mass migration into Europe.)
These Big City Liberals are great at distraction. Real magicians! They filter out People of Color into inner-city ghettos they starve of funding for infrastructure and education. They keep them down in poverty and crime. They wage wars on drugs and crime to fill their private-prison sweatshops. Then they scream "RACIST! BIGOT!" at everyone else. What a cliquish cult of crazy!
Now their plan is "hemispheric open borders." Tear down the Mexican border to have free trade and free migration. That way they'll get a hell of a deal on nannies, maids and factory workers.
Trump didn't create this mess. Including the policy of separating children from parents which happened to illegals and refugees under Obama, Bush, Trudeau and Harper. But he will clean it up.
His position is Fair Trade: stop Deep State corruption and bring living wages to the Americas using social tariffs so there is no flood of mass migration.
The neolib/neocon "Resistance" platform: MOAR of the same (and call it 'hope and change.')
Hey Anon 3:57, how's the weather in St. Petersburg? Did you know that taking children hostage was also used as an instrument of terror by authoritarian heroes like Stalin and Putin?
Last weekend, independent Russian-language media published hundreds of photographs from protests that preceded Monday’s inauguration of Vladimir Putin, who has claimed the office of President for the fourth time. In many of the pictures, Russian police were detaining children: primarily, preteen boys were having their arms twisted behind their backs by police, being dragged and shoved into paddy wagons.
Russia has come a long way in terms of democracy and human rights since 1980. The West has fallen a long way: it's institutions captured by upper-crust looters.
Russia could've made it a lot further if not for Western corruption: driving NATO right up to the Russian border in violation of post-Cold-War treaties and overthrowing the government of Ukraine back in 2014.
Trump was right in stopping the Deep State from digging up the Cold War with Russia. He is right in saying that Russia needs to be brought back into the G8. If you think Russia is bad now, wait till you see them in an axis with China. (China is well on its way to becoming an Orwellian state and just crowned Xi emperor-for-life.)
That's the problem with so many kiddies: they are ignorant of history and geopolitics. If Hitler had kept his agreement with Stalin, he probably would've won WW2. (China was getting their asses kicked by Japan at the time. Now they are a military super-power with loads of Western wealth.)
The West needs Russia to ensure global stability and prevent civilization from collapsing back into world war.
I'm glad the US president understands this. Fake Politicians and Fake Journalists know nothing but dollar signs.
BTW, Naomi Klein devotes a chapter to how Washington-Consensus neoliberals botched integrating Russia into the West after the Cold War in "The Shock Doctrine." (There's also a documentary on YouTube.)
My impression: looting plutocrats thought they could snatch up Russian assets on Friedmanian ideology which caused them to withdraw into authoritarianism.
Trump now has the opportunity to right this wrong with Fair Trade and diplomacy.
You know, Anon, you don't have to be so insulting to convince us of your ignorance. "Naomi Klein" wrote this... Oh yeah? People far more knowledgeable and aware had been pointing that out for years. Sometimes you have to go deeper than what you find on the shelves of second-hand bookstores, Anon.
Meanwhile you're profoundly boring and repetitive so troll somewhere else.
Mound, if you want to dig into the innards of your blog we can probably get pretty close to identifying the fuckwit twerp. Definitely identify his address. I've done it before.
I would say one only has to read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" or watch docs/movies like "Inside Job" or "Margin Call" or "The Big Short" to understand why Americans elected Donald J. Trump.
The wolves were tearing up the hen house. Rampant corruption everywhere. Trump said he'd stop them. The people were skeptical. But he delivered WAY more than was expected.
Now when the wolves howl and bark and snarl and growl about how dangerous this person is taking away their meat, it all sounds so ridiculous. You are Fake News!
Like a wolf crying wolf. It just becomes a spectacle. Like an emperor without clothes (and his entourage of meat-puppets singing his praises.)
"We're Surprised?"
ReplyDeleteNope. There has been plenty of evidence for a very long time. The sheeple just don't want to be reminded.
Civilization, in general, hasn't changed much since ancient Egypt or the Roman Empire
ReplyDelete...outside of advancements in medicine and technology. But the people themselves are still essentially the same.
ReplyDeleteI'm not as cynical, Tal. We have come a long way since the days of Egypt or Rome. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Treaty of Westphalia, the Geneva Conventions, the evolution of liberal democracy speak to this. What these photos reveal to me is that we can advance but we can also regress, yield to truly base instincts. Barbarism often lurks beneath the veneer of civilized behaviour. Studies have found that even in the most democratic societies there's always a significant element of "closet" authoritarians who emerge when some charismatic thug - Erdogan, Orban, Trump, take your pick - comes along. Democracy is always in peril to that sort of individual and the followers they awaken.
The only positive about those photos is that hopefully they are being seen by those who still see America as a wonderful land of opportunity instead of the exploitative, neoliberal hellhole it has become. When America collapses immigrants are going to be treated far worse than this, and no matter how bad it is at home, they will be better off if they are not here when it finally happens.
ReplyDeleteWhat about responsibility of parents who bring their children along?
ReplyDeleteIt is not cheap to reach USA anyway. Last week I heard on CBC radio about migrants shelling out 8k USD. Those supporting economic migrants should pay a full cost of sponsorship for a generation. BTW, where is Soros when we need him?
Toby, the sheeple love being reminded. It reinforces their sense of national pride.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteKarl, despite your criticisms of your homeland I sense that at some level you're still patriotic. I remember a different, better America that, while still deeply flawed, moved gradually but steadily in a better direction. What do you think is needed to get America headed in that direction again?
ReplyDeleteAnon 3:21. Can you make your opinions more irrelevant? America's migrants from the south actually contribute to the national economy and they always have. There are plenty of layabouts in the US but just not them. And Soros, really?
MLK's “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” doesn't seem quite as true any more does it.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteNo it doesn't, Deacon, and I'm not sure we have a fix for that either.
These ostentatious neoliberals are such empty husks.
ReplyDeleteTheir Fake Virtue is so Fake – cut with decades of corruption producing economic collapse, war and chaos across most of the world, the reemergence of slavery (!), etc. – they no longer even believe in it themselves. Now all they can do is scream at the sky.
They got nothing left – if they ever had any to begin with. Because, after all, their empty-calorie pretenses of virtue are what brought it all in the first place.
You want to learn about the torture of Abu Ghraib ? You have to go back to 1973 Chile. That's when the CIA began inventing modern torture techniques. The upper-class Deep State brought the war on socialism to the Americas to prevent another Cuba. In the tradition of Mengele, they began experimenting on the locals in torture-chamber laboratories.
(See Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.")
This was followed by the war on drugs. Which, coincidentally enough, produced a flood of mass migration into America. (Their war on terrorism – i.e., kill them all and let God sort it out – produced a flood of mass migration into Europe.)
These Big City Liberals are great at distraction. Real magicians! They filter out People of Color into inner-city ghettos they starve of funding for infrastructure and education. They keep them down in poverty and crime. They wage wars on drugs and crime to fill their private-prison sweatshops. Then they scream "RACIST! BIGOT!" at everyone else. What a cliquish cult of crazy!
Now their plan is "hemispheric open borders." Tear down the Mexican border to have free trade and free migration. That way they'll get a hell of a deal on nannies, maids and factory workers.
Trump didn't create this mess. Including the policy of separating children from parents which happened to illegals and refugees under Obama, Bush, Trudeau and Harper. But he will clean it up.
His position is Fair Trade: stop Deep State corruption and bring living wages to the Americas using social tariffs so there is no flood of mass migration.
The neolib/neocon "Resistance" platform: MOAR of the same (and call it 'hope and change.')
Hey Anon 3:57, how's the weather in St. Petersburg? Did you know that taking children hostage was also used as an instrument of terror by authoritarian heroes like Stalin and Putin?
ReplyDeleteLast weekend, independent Russian-language media published hundreds of photographs from protests that preceded Monday’s inauguration of Vladimir Putin, who has claimed the office of President for the fourth time. In many of the pictures, Russian police were detaining children: primarily, preteen boys were having their arms twisted behind their backs by police, being dragged and shoved into paddy wagons.
I know, I know... FAKE NEWS!!!
Cap
Russia has come a long way in terms of democracy and human rights since 1980. The West has fallen a long way: it's institutions captured by upper-crust looters.
ReplyDeleteRussia could've made it a lot further if not for Western corruption: driving NATO right up to the Russian border in violation of post-Cold-War treaties and overthrowing the government of Ukraine back in 2014.
Trump was right in stopping the Deep State from digging up the Cold War with Russia. He is right in saying that Russia needs to be brought back into the G8. If you think Russia is bad now, wait till you see them in an axis with China. (China is well on its way to becoming an Orwellian state and just crowned Xi emperor-for-life.)
That's the problem with so many kiddies: they are ignorant of history and geopolitics. If Hitler had kept his agreement with Stalin, he probably would've won WW2. (China was getting their asses kicked by Japan at the time. Now they are a military super-power with loads of Western wealth.)
The West needs Russia to ensure global stability and prevent civilization from collapsing back into world war.
I'm glad the US president understands this. Fake Politicians and Fake Journalists know nothing but dollar signs.
BTW, Naomi Klein devotes a chapter to how Washington-Consensus neoliberals botched integrating Russia into the West after the Cold War in "The Shock Doctrine." (There's also a documentary on YouTube.)
ReplyDeleteMy impression: looting plutocrats thought they could snatch up Russian assets on Friedmanian ideology which caused them to withdraw into authoritarianism.
Trump now has the opportunity to right this wrong with Fair Trade and diplomacy.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Anon, you don't have to be so insulting to convince us of your ignorance. "Naomi Klein" wrote this... Oh yeah? People far more knowledgeable and aware had been pointing that out for years. Sometimes you have to go deeper than what you find on the shelves of second-hand bookstores, Anon.
Meanwhile you're profoundly boring and repetitive so troll somewhere else.
Mound, if you want to dig into the innards of your blog we can probably get pretty close to identifying the fuckwit twerp. Definitely identify his address. I've done it before.
ReplyDeleteGoing to burn a cross on my lawn?
ReplyDeleteIgnorant fanatic .!..
I would say one only has to read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" or watch docs/movies like "Inside Job" or "Margin Call" or "The Big Short" to understand why Americans elected Donald J. Trump.
ReplyDeleteThe wolves were tearing up the hen house. Rampant corruption everywhere. Trump said he'd stop them. The people were skeptical. But he delivered WAY more than was expected.
Now when the wolves howl and bark and snarl and growl about how dangerous this person is taking away their meat, it all sounds so ridiculous. You are Fake News!
Like a wolf crying wolf. It just becomes a spectacle. Like an emperor without clothes (and his entourage of meat-puppets singing his praises.)
"The gig is up."