applegrove
applegrove's Journal"Yachts for the top tier & outhouses for the rest". I love
that so true Putin's Russia description. Can I use it?
I'm guessing he did pardon his aides for Jan6 in his last two weeks to
keep them silent on Jan 6 and threatened with potential heat in any investigation.
I knew a guy from China in Ottawa. He was my brother's roommate.
His father was mid to high up in the Chinese trade and diplomacy arms of the Chinese government. The Tamils had just ben over-run in Sri Lanka. People were desperate. There was a big Tamil demonstration on Parliament Hill, 10 blocks away. I was over at my brother's and the Chinese guy, smart and doing his economics thesis, was pacing and shaking. He was really scared at what a demonstration would mean and he said so. No concept of there being some respect in demonstrators for government and the rule of law that was unwritten. Democracy in action. Democracy respected. Democracy believed in. He could not process it. And the Tamils' only beef with Ottawa was that they wanted the international community to demand the health and welfare of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
I'm not saying they lagged behind. Just that they seem to have a different trajectory. And now they are culturally genociding more than one group of people. Maybe they need a few generations of rampant civil society to build some trust in their fellow personkind.
There is also pillaging, bloodlust and rape in war. Sadists and
blind followers. Culture too. My grandfather grew up in a time when signing up to fight was admirable. Even the rich signed up. Of course sometimes you don't have a choice. I would fight if I was in the Ukraine by helping out local hospitals or feeding old people who can't leave or something. There is no future in oligarchs taking all the wealth of your country and forcing the locals into permanent poverty as the Russians have done to the parts of Ukraine they already had control of. I suppose there is the lure of honor and immortality in war too.
No. Going to war is something else entirely. I have not studied that. When
autocrats go with industrial violence they don't put themselves in danger of being hit. But like putin, the lack of competition or free press has allowed corruption and destroying any leadership that might one day depose the autocrat, degrades the information and the army. That happens when the leader is in a bubble. But war is faith in your nation state or monarchy or autocracy plus some other things. I don't know what they are. I think older soldiers think they might die. They are young mostly so that may make them think they themselves are indestructible. Don't know really. They were given propaganda before the Russians invaded Ukraine so there is an element of faith but perhaps it is just pure and separate delusions. My grandfather went to WWII when he was 40. He had gone to military college. He smoked like a chimney when he was abroad. ISIS fighters were on some stimulants. Why it was called Jihadderall. The Navy used to give sailors booze. Endorphins are involved in the 'brotherhood'. It is more than faith.
If you have the capacity to have faith in religion, you have
the capacity to have faith in the human construct of monarchy and then faith in the human construct of the nation state and really believe in that and go abroad and live a life full of risk to administer (abuse and rob) colonies. It takes a leap of faith. Go somewhere and make your fortune. And then they (USA and France) jumped into the human construct called democracy. That took Americans more faith than the Chinese have for democracy. They just can't jump.
It is the concrete fear of retaliation and punishment that floats the boat called China instead. The downside of faith is cults, populists, and demagogues. You don't need faith in an autocracy. You just need trust that you will be sorry if you don't do what you are told. If you have faith people too use that, give them cults and religion, and control those, and you have a role for them in the autocracy. Different farm animals have different pens right Trump?. Or decide, like china, to destroy the least favourite religions or the most threatening to autocracy if people have too much faith.
Communism we know only ran as totalitarian states after the first bit of equity. There was a time in our distant past when we shared everything, so it was easier to believe in when you looked around and the poor were not being taken care of at the turn of the 20th Century. Many people no longer believed in the construct of monarchy. It was a failure. Tear it down. Tear up wealth. But communist countries almost instantly became death traps. There was no innovation because, like you said, that requires competition. They saw the construct of communism as a failure too, and went capitalist in two or three generations (in my grandmother's lifetime). But neither China or Russia ended up democratic.
Just a lens you can look at history with. You can see the GOP, like de santis, pounding away at people who believe in democracy every day. It is a scary religion to them. It needs to be destroyed. Why Thiel called Warren Buffet a sociopathic Grandpa. The faith in democracy people have and support is a danger to them. They'll go after our (small "d" ) democratic totems one by one and smash them, taking apart the infrastructure of the liberal order, all the while trying to make the voter feel vulnerable so they vote Republican.
Some are not stupid but people with the capacity for faith in human
constructs and cults construct a whole narrative like a religion. Having faith is a human capacity that means people will work well together and get things done. They ride a wave. It is why Europe ruled the world and China did not (buddhist follow a philosophy that does not require as much faith). Something that is good in some cases is bad in other cases..... in this case faith people becomming Trumpists. They did a study and conservative voters are ones who feel vulnerable as people. Liberal voters feel like Superman. It is not their fault unions were attacked and destroyed and programs that help people rise were gutted. That was intentional by the GOP movement Conservatives. More people became vulnerable. Republicans took away a secure retirement from these people and they started voting passion/faith and without reason because passion was free and it spread.
I don't think ignoring the nuance of their situation helps us. That is what we accuse them of..... afterall if the dream of retiring to a cabin in the woods was still possible for them they would not be dreaming about Trump and belonging to something bigger than themselves. The cabin would be a big enough dream. So there were hundreds of thousands whose lives fell apart financially. They had nothing to hope for. They went republican. Then Trump. Then the delusions of the masses took over with the internet. These are people who feel vulnerable and Fox News keeps them there.
We do no good when we engage them in debate which includes making them feel stupid or vulnerable. We need to do a positive vision that includes them. Like Biden is doing.
Hedge funds are getting into real estate. So this will not stop those sales.
There is too much money in the hands of the rich. Stocks are overpriced. Buybacks common. The wealthy need to find new markets to make money in. If only they would up the wages of their workers maybe the workers could buy more things creating demand. You know.... liberalism.
This is so true. In tin pot dictator world if you were not loyal you lost
your job and were outcast. If the GOP penalizes opposition that is not democracy. Democracy is winning power with some and governing for all.
https://twitter.com/MaxBoot/status/1511124369573036049?s=20&t=NKEc44vKS00YnY-YC3wNLQ
I had a friend who was 13 when China invaded Tibet. His father
was a businessman. The first thing the Chinese did was shut his business down. I assume since China is so capitalist now that they encourage Tibetan owned businesses? Is that right? Or is this appeal to capitalism just a dog whistle to autocrats and fascists and antidemocratic entities in the West to get back in control because Democracy is winning worldwide in this Ukraine situation?
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Member since: Mon Feb 7, 2005, 03:14 AMNumber of posts: 118,630