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The Chinese Aren’t Coming
On Tuesday, the Cold War finally ended with a historic trade agreement between China and Taiwan that will dramatically integrate the mainland’s economy with that of its claimed breakaway province. Peace has descended on the most contentious point of conflict between East and West for the past six decades—but don’t expect the folks at the Pentagon or their military contractors to celebrate. The remaining raison d’être for much of their $700 billion budget has suddenly collapsed, and with it the claim on huge profits and high-flying careers.
The bulk of that money, higher in constant dollars than at any other time since World War II, is spent on weapons systems to fight a sophisticated Cold War enemy that went out of business with the breakdown of the Soviet Union. And the so-called “war on terror” does not cut it as a substitute excuse for feeding the immense maw of the military-industrial complex. It is laughable to suggest that the ever more complex and costly high-tech weaponry we continue to build is needed to defeat an opponent armed with the box cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers or a primitive roadside bomb set off by an Iraqi insurgent.
When Sen. Joe Lieberman makes his annual case for those $2.5 billion submarines produced in his home state of Connecticut, his central argument has been that the Chinese are building equally sophisticated weapons that threaten us. “If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind China,” he thundered during one Senate debate. Obviously, it’s harder to make the case that submarines are needed to capture al-Qaida terrorists holed up in some landlocked nation’s mountain caves. So too with the ever more advanced arsenal designed to penetrate enemy defenses not even built when those Cold War adversaries still operated.
“The Chinese are coming” became the last refuge of war-profiteering scoundrels once the Russians started cutting back dramatically, but this alarm was never plausible. The authoritative quadrennial Defense Department reports have always made clear that China has at most threatened to become a regional power with Taiwan as its focus. Yet that pathetic excuse for the U.S. spending as much on its military as do the rest of the world nations combined seemed plausible to most in Congress who voted for massive military appropriations even as our government had to borrow money from the Chinese to cover our deficits.
Then those treacherous Chinese, both the mainland Communists and their feuding Taiwan-based cousins, had to go and ruin a good thing by going way beyond kissing and making up. Even when they were verbally warring they were still doing business together during this past decade. Trade between the two is already a hefty $110 billion, 41 percent of Taiwan’s exports, but the new agreement will much expand that by ending tariffs on key products while opening up the financial services industry to investors from what was once an impenetrable cross-strait divide. Taiwanese business investment on the mainland is already massive, but now it will enter the realm of the mainland’s high finance with the world economy as its playground.
The prospect of war between the two, already vastly diminished from Cold War highs, will soon not be possible without hitting their own investment assets on the other side. Which is exactly the peace of the new world order that some U.S. leaders, most prominently the first President Bush, had once welcomed. The question is whether Americans truly believe they can be winners in a world built on expanding trade rather than on military tension.
One has to wonder about our priorities when Congress cannot find the $34 billion needed to continue unemployment payments for six months to 1.7 million workers thrown out of jobs but never questions that sort of spending on military hardware with no logical purpose. The proud promise of American capitalism, often in conflict with a drearier reality, was that our economy did not need military conquest to succeed. Now it is the Chinese, of varying ideological disposition, the heirs of Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, who will test our commitment to that principle. Clearly those former enemies have concluded that power, in the modern world economy, does not grow out of the barrel of a gun, even from a very big and enormously expensive one.
The China-Taiwan agreement and its implications also raise some questions for Americans: How does a modern nation obtain national security? Are we more secure with our permanent war economy, or is the pursuit of peace through trade and diplomacy, as the formerly most bitter of Chinese enemies are demonstrating, a better way?
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Show AllThe problem is that military expenditures are highly profitable for a handful of elities who own, among other things, a place called D.C. Meanwhile the general public is fed a constant stream of misinformation from another arm of the elites, (the mainstream media via advertisements) ensures that the average Joe will believe that a 700 hundred billion dollar a year defence budget is neccessary to keep us secure. Unfortunately Joe Citizen doesn't realize that our only sure path to security is to rein in the destructive madness of corporate America.
As K Street lobbies Congress to slash social benefits, lower minimum wage, eliminate regulations, abandon alternative energies, undermine universal healthcare, build and fill more prisons and accelerate global conflict, the public gets to watch faux debates between Democrats and Republicnas on who promises to lower corporate taxes more. Who can forget the debate between John Kerry and George Bush in 1999 when Bush claimed he was a bigger friend of corporate America than his opponent only to have John Kerry pledge an immediate cut to corporate taxes across the board if elected. Obama has proven to be just as corporate friendly as his predecessors with his bailout of the banks, his inability to say no to Big Oil despite the Deep Horizon disaster and his pledge to increase our involvement in futile wars abroad in the name of "national security".
Until Americans learn to vote for politicians who make bold and honest pledges to support the public interest at the expense of the rich, nothing will change. When was the last time you heard a presidential hopeful promise to halve the military budget, wean us off of fossil fuels or immediately end the illegal occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and even Gaza? When was the last time you heard a presidential hopeful promise to eliminate private healthcare poviders in exchange for a universal, government insured, all in, nobody out healthcare system? Or when was the last time you heard a politician who promised only to raise taxes on the rich?
Though the military and Homeland Insecurity are the most obvious targets for budget cuts, the governments perpetual committment to finance these dinosaurs is the ultimate proof that Washington is not a government of the people.
Space case: A most excellent post. However, it bears stating that for a candidate to make the top tiers or gain media access, s/he must usually pass the tests the corporate managers pose. In other words, the anointed one must prove loyal to the cause; and by that I mean, deferential towards the policy preferences of the kingly elites. Only someone like Ross Perot who was willing to gamble his own considerable fortune on amassing air time has a shot. The giveaway of the media bandwidth to the pre-existing corporations, a theft that took place under Clinton, essentially ensured that those that own the media determine who gains political access. Unless and until that major glitch is corrected, there is NO chance of hearing any candidate speak about reining in the corporations, their owners.
I just returned from a journey to Peru and learned about the prophecies of the Indigenous shaman who reside there. Some in this forum are so proud of their polished intellects, so identified with ego as to completely under-value the power and vision of people who have developed portions of the brain/consciousness that Western society does not even understand.
Bottom line: With or without political consent or consensus, huge changes are in progress. We have seen at least one major weather event each month since 2010 began. Voices as diverse as Edgar Cayce to the Sun Bear relate the key spiritual teaching that what human beings do is reflected in how nature/climate responds. When war, vengeance, violence, killing, and divisiveness replace the teachings human beings are intended to live by... then the elemental forces assume the role of equalizer. It's one of karma's key tools.
I would like to organize healing circles for parts of Florida. I know there are at least six people who regularly post who reside in this state. Anyone interested in participating? As Dubet would say: target date, next new moon... about 10 days from now.
YAY! Souixrose is back from Peru! I will be waiting to read of your experiences in Peru with great interest!
SLIM: I appreciate the warm welcome! I have never before in my life flown first class, but I was able to trade frequent flyer miles to cover the air-fare portion of this trip. The original flight left Miami at near midnight and I dreaded pulling an all-nighter (like my college days), only to arrive in Lima at the crack of dawn. The woman sitting next to me was a nurse, diplomat, who originally came from Texas.
On the return flight I was glad that I would fly from Cusco to Lima at 8:30 AM, and then take a NOON flight to Miami. When I got to Cusco, it became clear that my 2nd flight did NOT exist! I was naturally pretty upset, and after buying gifts, paying airport taxes, and tipping all the staff... I had less than $10 left!
I highly recommend LAN airlines. When they realized the mistake on my ticket, they put me up at a very nice Ramada that I could walk to, and comp'd my lunch and dinner. I was even invited to the Admiral's Club inside the airport, but never made it in time. This airline's first class seats went into a total recline and I actually slept all the way to Miami which was great since I had a 6 hour drive ahead. Plus I was glad to find I am not on any no-fly list. One wonders these days!
The good thing about taking notes the way I do is that in transcribing them, I get to essentially relive the entire experience. I hope to start that project this weekend. Right now Florida appears to be getting the outer band rain systems from the hurricane hitting Texas/North Mexico.
My friend who I consider a true local medicine man told me he thinks the rivers in our region will be sufficient to keep the oil out of the springs-ecosystems. I pray that he's right. However, in seeing and witnessing the power of medicine circles in South America, I would like to help bring together sincere persons, spiritual persons, and hopefully Florida Indigenous persons to lead such circles. The shaman believe that the earth Mother, Pachamama, responds to our prayers, love, and gratitude. How many Americans ever consider Her in their life/fiscal/religious equations? Part of any call to balance/healing/homeostasis is to recognize the Divine Mother as the benefactor of our lives and those ecosystems we all rely upon.
Siouxrose, glad you had a nice trip and didn't fall into a sink hole somewhere in Florida (I was wondering where your posts were). Here in Hawaii we have a rather large indigenous Hawaiian (plus) group that keeps many of the old traditions about the sacredness of the earth and it's elements alive. This would involve hula groups and sovereignty rights groups plus a sprinkling of others.
By the way what's your interpretation of the astrological configuration of the cardinal signs all squaring themselves with a grand cross that people are talking about. I have only modest knowledge of astrology (and most other things) so I may have this wrong or the terminology confused.
thanks Ralph
Wow, Siouxrose, you went to Peru.? When you mentioned Cusco (is it also spelled Cuzco sometimes), I remember that it was the setting for some events about 500 years ago - as described in the book "Stolen Continents" by Ronald Wright. Even though I was somewhat familiar with a bit of history, Ronald Wright's writing style made it even more dramatic. It so affected me for a few days that I actually wanted to learn Quechua for some reason (I even found some basic lessons online). I tried to locate the various places mentioned in the book on Google map. I kept imagining a people, who, despite minor fighting among neighboring groups and clans, still had managed to evolve a culture, a language and everything before everything was shaken up brutally. But Ronald Wright tried to imply that there was some kind of a revival among many indigenous people. So, we'll see.
Hi Sioux Rose, welcome back.
"what human beings do is reflected in how nature/climate responds. When war, vengeance, violence, killing, and divisiveness replace the teachings human beings are intended to live by... then the elemental forces assume the role of equalizer. It's one of karma's key tools."
How do you separate assertions like the above with those of say Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, both of whom have blamed recent natural disasters as God's punishment for the acceptance of homosexual marriage in some states? Because your superstitions are right and the Evangelical Christians' superstitions are wrong?
"Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, both of whom have blamed recent natural disasters as God's punishment for the acceptance of homosexual marriage in some states?"
Because they are literal idiots? Even most Christians think they are.
mightymite:
What makes these people "literal idiots"? Is it things like blaming natural disasters on the gay agenda? If so, then what separates Sioux Rose from these literal idiots when she blames extreme weather occurrences on military aggression?
ADHOC (and others): I just got back and have a lot on my plate, not to mention magazine deadlines. In the next week or so I'll have a chance to type up my notes and then I can clearly reference EXACT quotes from Dr. Alberto Villoldo. He has dedicated 30 years to studying with the shaman of Peru, and those in the Amazon jungles.
It is next to impossible to convey the species of consciousness that indigenous shaman/mystics have developed to those who have been processed by Western culture. The tendency in Western education is to separate items and disciplines. It is not one that can see the connections among things. These are regarded very suspiciously. Working in groups, the female shaman used a primitive whistle one afternoon high in the Andes (we climbed mountains every day... I had to stop after 40 steps due to the altitude, to catch my breath) and called a condor... and a little while later, there it was circling us. I might have considered it a coincidence had she not called an eagle a few days prior. It, too, appeared to circle our group...
If you want to lump me with Pat Robertson, go for it. I take my understanding from a good deal of research and equal engagement in the written works of many spiritual adepts. They do not use something like homosexuality as a basis for explaining why floods happen. The common denominators are peace, tolerance, and mutual respect... that on Earth School 101, the KEY course is "learning to get along." Since our nation's investment in arms, militarism, spying (both in the homeland and abroad) all represent the antithesis of the very premise of getting along, our nation is way out of alignment with higher law. Its hubris is seen in the imbeciles running policy in every aspect of life. I think a drunk emerging from an alcoholic stupor could make better decisions than those we, as citizens, are being asked & tasked to live with:
1. Finance that gives to the rich and steals from the poor
2. Media that lies and calls it news
3. Industrial "food" that screws with basic plant genetics in a way that brings to mind Pandora's Box. Its modus operandi is to nutrition what the oil wound in the Gulf is to energy production.
4. War after war after war, with the nation's collapsing infrastructure more clearly qualifying as a national security issue.
5. Schools closing minds and programming children to become robots
There are MANY other areas, but these set the template.
I will, as time permits (and as CD topics warrant) share more of what I experienced, including the prophetic teachings I came upon, with this forum in coming weeks.
For me its the fact that I know these two are literal idiots and dishonest to boot while I know SR to be honest and never less than straight forward. She believes what she believes and says so with honesty.
I would not make fun of anyones beliefs, nor do I make fun of the "literal idiots" religion, just them and their dishonesty.
Ad HOC: Corrupt power-hungry fools who hide behind religion, riches, or politics usually use "God's Will" as a precept for projecting their own agenda. The law of karma is, in my view, cosmic mathematics of a sort. Whatever you do comes back to you, like the spiritual version of the laws of thermodynamics. Most societies have an understanding of karma as their spiritual foundation. It's when selfish narrow minded bigots think THEY get to tell others what the RULES are, that things get nasty, divisive, and deadly. I am confident I do not fall into the Pat Robertson clan... hope I made the distinction clear. I realize that some in this forum, atheists and logicians, tend to presume morality is merely a human device, something projected by flawed mortals onto the cosmos. I see it quite differently: that laws, even seen in such things as the reliable orbit of the planets and the temperature that water freezes at (etc) are embedded into our world. Just as computer chips convey and carry data, I believe that the planets are encoded with Divine Principles. I've elaborated on that theme countless times in this forum. I am pressed for time at the moment and will not be able to once again define, explain, or extrapolate further on the celestial themes of time that impress as specific characteristics, archetypal hues that color our world.
"Corrupt power-hungry fools who hide behind religion, riches, or politics usually use "God's Will" as a precept for projecting their own agenda."
There's a good argument for what separates you. Thanks, that's all I was looking for.
"Only someone like Ross Perot who was willing to gamble his own considerable fortune on amassing air time has a shot."
The media found a way around that in 1996 when he was effectively shut out of the debates. I wasn't impressed with his endorsement of George W Bush in 2000 and his subsequent campaigning for Republicans in Texas. I agree with everything else you say about the media. I can't get people to say anything against any of the networks other than Fox News watchers against CNN and vice versa. I agree that the media glitch, actually bigger than a glitch when you add up the historical consequences, needs to be corrected but the minute that starts happening, everyone's up in arms about losing freedom if they lose that "glitch".
"I would like to organize healing circles for parts of Florida. I know there are at least six people who regularly post who reside in this state. Anyone interested in participating?"
Today is my last day at work since the contract ends tonight so I will be looking for a new job after today. I'll have to think about Florida as it is a long ways from where I live. I hear that there is a lot of Indian culture going on in that state but I'll have to compare it to MD, NJ, PA, OH, DC, and VA as well. If I get a compelling job offer in FL that motivates me to move all the way, I might have a closer chance. FL is a big state. Which part of the state are you from?
Would like to learn about the Peruvian indigenous prophesies, do you have a website you can post, or book, or could you post some details? thx..
LUCKY: Google: The Four Winds Society. Some of Dr. Villoldo's lectures can be downloaded. It will take me some time to organize my notes so that I can share specific references in this forum. Thank you for asking.
Pursuit of peace through trade and diplomacy! But do we know how to achieve it after so many years of empire-building?
I am currently living in China in an area where I see maybe one non-Chinese a month, and often get asked a question like this: Why do Americans love to go to war so much?
Please tell the next one that asks its because we have extremely bad leadership and a corrupt government. That about sums it up.
As China continues to gain power and influence, let's hope they don't ask the same question of themselves someday. Please mention our utterly corrupt press in your response. As they should well know, without a free and fair press, democracy is impossible.
mightymite & lucky - you both responded in a similar way I respond to the Chinese who ask me such a question.
Right on Space Cadet.
I want to see a cost/benefit analysis comparing garrisoning a pipeline route across the deserts of southern Afghanistan to building vast solar arrays on our own Mojave Desert.
If we don't stop polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gasses Earth could wind up like Venus with a surface temperature of 600 degrees, hot enough to melt lead. Think about it Washington - bullets will not be possible!
We're borrowing from China to fund the wars and don't forget the economic slave trade going on for the Walmarts of this country. They get cheap shit from China when we shouldn't be relying on their imports. Legalize industrial hemp and we can make our own petro-free counterparts here at home and not be tied to their slave labor. At some point China will have to flip the foreclosure switch and make the US pay the piper.
Wow! President Obama has a new problem on his plate namely how to deal with a Chinese-Taiwan approach over which he had/has no control whatsoever. More and more he reminds me of the sorcerer's apprentice from Goethe's famous poem (and Disney's cartoon).
Capitalism encourages people to take risks, go for the gold. Risk takers that succeed become wealthy power brokers. Risk takers that fail, however, are social pariahs.
I believe that a country that encourages risk taking - must have a social safety net. People need to get their strength back so they can once again play the game of Risk.
Unless it is a one strike - you're out - system.
Right now, many of the wealthiest, powerful people in the US became so because the US used to invest in invention and risk. Those men succeeded BECAUSE of social investment.
Now, these same success stories - want to deprive others of the same benefits they had. They are evil people.
Actions speak louder than words.
Capitalism is now the biggest form of progress trap, as defined by Ronald Wright, in A Short History of Progress. Depending on how you define it, it is a very generic form of progress trap. Capital consists of owned exploitable resources, but has prospered most over the ownership of non-renewable resources, fossil fuels and minerals, to build industrial earth. Capitalists are opportunists, taking advantage of the many examples of once in this place in the Universe opportunities, to make entropy in the one and only direction it will go, to create a desired but not so large amount of order for personal advancement and continued good life. Capitalism is merely an external extension of life, which makes order out of a much larger increase in disorder or entropy.
For the fate of our Civilization, which opportunities we choose determine how fast the disorder will overwhelm our ability to make order. At the moment the disorder is gaining over the ability to restore order.
The industrial capitalist process brings goods that are highly desired, and allow the population to grow, make more intensive wars, and increase the sophistication, science and quantity of employment of our machine Capital. We use machines to make better machines that can build better machines. But better only in the sense of consuming yet more energy and materials.
The scale of our use of fossil fuels and minerals has grown, taken over our culture and exploded the entire population size. Science, industrial chemistry and agriculture grow the machine age to its maximum throughputs.
This process is like a chemical reaction that eventually consumes all the reactants.
The major industrial processes require concentrated energy and pure materials which are none-renewable. No matter what the sophistication, science and strength of recycling efforts, which overall is very poor, the resources are turned into waste. The law of entropy rules. Only vastly more energy can be used to collect the scattered material and energy waste and turn it into pure raw materials again. There is / was only so much pure materials and energy sources around which are one use only.
Our civilization has nearly gone through the one use only materials from all the high quality resources, like the Once-lers we all are. Now our Capitalists seek to exploit the lower grade resources until the energy costs exceed the value gained.
We cannot use fossil fuels as the source of energy for recycling, because it immediately becomes fossil fuel waste, acidic oceans and climate change. The only source of energy for recycling is the sun, and the great biological recycling of life and geologic processes driven by the sun.
Its a trap because Civilization has grown to this size from exploitation of the best resources, and the best resources are disappearing forever, which means this fossil fuel machine Civilization bubble will collapse.
B3nign, that was a great post. Capitalism, as it exists today, is simply not sustainable. No amount of clever, intellectual lipstick will help this pig. It is terrifying to think of the enormous stupidity behind today's "civilization" that depends totally on the extraction and exploitation of non-renewable resources.
How ironic that the u.s. had been trying to open the China Market since the founding to sell u.s. goods to the huge Chinese population. Nixon opened the door and here we are a few short decades later and the u.s. buys all the Chinese goods.
The capitalists sure are adaptable. All they had to do was disregard their fellows by casting off all sense of a national community and pursuit their personal enrichment.
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." Sun Tzu
hmmmm
Well stated! "hmmmm" indeed Buck.
"or is the pursuit of peace through trade and diplomacy, as the formerly most bitter of Chinese enemies are demonstrating, a better way?"
Is that along with their two million man army, building a blue water navy at breakneck speed, an armaments industry expanding faster than a speeding bullet, better designs for field equipment (lifted mostly from the West) or an air force that is quietly expanding to #2 with an aircraft industry starting in China?
"Clearly those former enemies have concluded that power, in the modern world economy, does not grow out of the barrel of a gun, even from a very big and enormously expensive one"
This is simply an ignorant statement or a stupid one in light of clear facts.
The Chinese clearly have a better plan than we do and they are uninterested in protecting anything but China as we should be doing in protecting only America. Our military spending is absurd (though a lot of other spending is attached to it) we still spend far to much on it and are many places we should not be anymore.
If America were going to emulate anyone in economic, trade and military policies today, it should be China, certainly not Europe.
"If America were going to emulate anyone in economic, trade and military policies today, it should be China, certainly not Europe."
Exactly what is wrong with Europe that makes China better? Fewer working hours but better pay along with higher quality production, workers taking to the streets and protesting their leaders attempting to sell out, spending far less on warfare and corporate welfare, collective thinking and actions instead of individualism gone amuck ??? I am sorry but emulating China's broken down standards is unacceptable even though China is probably doing better than America. I haven't been to China though so I can't tell how much better or worse than America it really is but I seriously doubt that Europe is worse than China having been to a few nations in Europe. I hope Europe keeps up in leaning towards socialism with regulated capitalism only as a fall back, fair trade, and less military spending. They were doing fine when they had that going. Caving in to disaster capitalism and sending troops to Afghanistan can only hurt them like it did the US.
I believe you'll find that socialism in Europe is slipping quite a bit. The bills for all the promises are coming due and its not going to be pretty. Some like Germany will do better of course.
There is a limit to the European type society and they are reaching it.
America is in better shape than either for the moment. Chinas trade policies, military spending and nationalist polices were what I was talking about. They are only concerned with their own country as we should be.
Their method of government, treatment of people, invasions and occupations are certainly NOT something we should emulate.
The neo-liberal/neo-classical economic narrative has gained a lot of ground in Europe in the last 20 years or so, and Europe is getting screwed by the ECB and the international Banksters. So while socialism has never existed on earth, elements of socialism blended with capitalism do exist moreso in Europe than in other places, yet more privatization is coming thanks to the rentier class of international finance.
Germany, for example, has the highest labor costs in the world, yet exports more per capita than any other country in the world. This alone contradicts the BS we are told about high taxes and labor costs lead to economic collapse.
While China has a terrible environmental laws, quasi slave labor, you want the US to emulate it? I got news for you the US is already emulating China by ignoring environmental laws and declaring war on working people.
The US is dead last in health care in the entire developed world, dead last in equal distribution of income, resources, and wealth.
Some things the US is #1 compared to over 20 other developed nations: number of people imprisoned, violent crime, military and related spending, and hi-tech weapons.
Please stop getting information from the TV set because much of what you said in the previous post sounds alarmingly similar to the mainstream storyline.
Thank you socialist for explaining this well. The "mighty mites" of this country are starstruck and misled into believing that the US is doing better just because nothing much is reported all the while Faux Noise, ABC, and other American media outlets make a big holler about the ongoing mess in Europe and demonize populist uprisings. I fear even tougher times ahead as the news on Europe is bound to brainwash the "mighty mites" of this country into further drowning themselves in disaster capitalism. I hope those other nations push back and prove the US wrong on all fronts.
I'm sorry you feel that way. What I said is true. Just sit back and watch it unfold. When a system is actuarially unsound it can never survive and that is what you are seeing right now.
That wasn't an explanation by the way, that was double talk. The old dazzle em with footwork spiel.
Americans as a whole are quite well on the road to not caring a damn about Europe and if it goes further, you will see what difference our country really made.
Be well.
Listen mightymite, I have been to Europe and yes, not everything is rosy but unlike the US, they will not collapse without a tough fight. Americans are quite well? I don't know about that. They may think they're "flying" like Peter Pan and getting as "rich" as Donald Trump but most of them are worse off year after year no matter how far they want to deny it. We haven't had any true recovery since 2008 or even since the recession in the early 1990s. At best, we had illusions of "recovery" with Wall $treet getting policies in their favor at the expense of Main Street and later bailouts for Wall $treet at the expense of Main Street. The cornfed electorate is free to trash Europe and their ways for all I care but such macho-egotistical thinking is why we keep failing ourselves everytime while they usually recover. Yes, our country made a difference all right in terms of spreading bad values instead of the good values most of which were long buried. I can't tell you how upset it feels when I notice a lot of good things over there compared to here. Let's talk about health care for example. How do you like it when they get to ask questions about our health care system because they know that they will get to laugh at us for having a broken system about to get worse? Or let's talk about public transportation. When I felt comfortable on those trains, one of my relatives friends asked me if I had ever ridden a train before and others were smiling almost ready to laugh at me. I answered that of course I have ridden trains in the US but that when I wasn't near a metro station I wouldn't be able to. One of them said that he was sorry to hear about lack of enough accessibility to trains and buses after I had to explain more about this in the US. Over time, when asked about other issues, I had to give answers with an angry and upset tone. Finally, they wondered and laughed as they asked just what the US government is doing for us Americans with our tax dollars. I almost felt like crying when I answered admitting that our tax dollars are seldom spent wisely. At least their government spend the tax revenue wisely while ours fails miserably at that. Face it. As much as this nation would love to brag about being a "tough conservative" nation, there is nothing truly conservative about our nation other than religious abuse and control. No wonder our nation is a LAUGHING STOCK ! :(
Cheers JB, one cannot argue with someone who believes in lies and propaganda. This poster is just one of millions. Not to sound arrogant but his/her response demonstrated a lack of understanding of some basic concepts.
The corporate and political elite need folks to believe things are just fine, business as usual, while we have the New Great Depression with record unemployment, public infrastructure dismantled and stripped, thousands of teachers laid off etc. etc.
Either the poster is highly mis-informed or deliberately trying to spread a message that benefits those calling the shots.
At least CD has dozens of posters like you who are informed and able to think critically.
Cheers to you too as we try to make it through this stubborn sludge hell. As you know, I won't just hang on to CD. Alternet has room for our dissent or at least it isn't as partisan as Dkos and Fluffpost. By the way, don't forget the troops who are being put in harm's way as well. I feel very sorry for a lot of them who are going in misinformed. :(
"The neo-liberal/neo-classical economic narrative has gained a lot of ground in Europe in the last 20 years or so, and Europe is getting screwed by the ECB and the international Banksters. So while socialism has never existed on earth, elements of socialism blended with capitalism do exist moreso in Europe than in other places, yet more privatization is coming thanks to the rentier class of international finance"
Thats the best laugh I've had today. For the last 30 years all we've heard is Europe has the answer. And these perfect countries were ambushed by those bad old capitalists. How about taking responsibility for their own actions for a change.
"Germany, for example, has the highest labor costs in the world, yet exports more per capita than any other country in the world. This alone contradicts the BS we are told about high taxes and labor costs lead to economic collapse."
That is exactly where they are headed. Do you not pay attention to current events?
"Please stop getting information from the TV"
Thats a tacky thing to say, but if you are so superior in knowledge and learning as you indicate, I should be ashamed to exchange words with you. You are after all enlightened while the rest of us have to stumble around.
God God, and people wonder why no one tales the left seriously?
mightymite, please go to Europe and learn something. I'll have my relatives there help you cut down your expenses while at it ! You will realize that M$M is brainwashing you. Socialist, myself, and others are trying to put you out of your foolish thinking.
P.S.: On your last sentence, I think you meant to say "takes" instead of "tales". Thanks for making me laugh even in my frustrated mood.
Someone watches way to much glenn beck.
Jennifer, I have been to China and there is a big economic conflict going on between bringing back some of the older tradition that were socialist but not communist and falling for yuppie style capitalism. The latter seems to be gaining ground but there may be enough resistance yet to put a damper on yuppie style capitalism. Even regulated capitalism would not tolerate the slave labor abuse I myself witnessed in China when I was there.
Remember that saying from the Sixties:
"What if they threw a war and nobody showed up."
Joe Lieberman is a blight on humanity and the world. Thank the Universe he didn't become vice president (or president). What a violent, conniving slug of life.
Speaking of Chinas rapidly growing military power, if you look at the percentage of GDP that China is spending on her military you can clearly see if we weren't engaged in two wars and maintaining bases that do not benefit America but other countries, we could esily maintain an even stronger military with far less money as the Chinese are doing.
19th-century French economic journalist Frederic Bastiat made the point that we cannot see the jobs soldiers and military personel and military contractors could be engaged in were they not in the military or working for it.
This gets to an argument Bastiat made in discussing demobilization of French soldiers after Napoleon’s downfall. He pointed out that when government cuts the size of the military, it frees up not only manpower but also money. The money that would have gone to pay soldiers can instead be used to hire them as civilian workers. That can happen in three ways, either individually or in combination: (1) a tax cut; (2) a reduction in the deficit; or (3) an increase in other government spending.
Now if they could get something positive in Korea.
The cost of a US war easily lasts a century for pension benefits alone for soldiers and for their survivors.
Pensions and social benefits are all too easily abolished or become greatly inadequate. They require for one thing, a surplus of resources. On this full and overcrowded earth, there is only a surplus for the privileged and powerful.