[ROCKMAN]

P - Exactly. Of course burning fossil fuels has changed the ciimate. I wrote such a paper when I was an undergrad geologist in the early 70's. But the US and global economies demanded it. Just as they still do today. Which is why most politicians push of real change to politicians IN THE FUTURE. They dare not disrupt the "machine" today.

[evilgenius]

P - Exactly. Of course burning fossil fuels has changed the ciimate. I wrote such a paper when I was an undergrad geologist in the early 70's. But the US and global economies demanded it. Just as they still do today. Which is why most politicians push of real change to politicians IN THE FUTURE. They dare not disrupt the "machine" today.

Exactly, it's only because Donald Trump can ill afford to go through a bankruptcy now, when he is trying to prove his gravitas for keeping the whole country from going through their own, that we even have to rehash this topic. Oil has to hold up for him. He needs something to fall back on that is simple, and demonizes the opposition. What better than to use this lever which tackles the science issue the GOP has in a unique way. Oil works. It is proven. He can sow doubt about everything else. It gets votes, and it will keep him from having to make the payments, if he can land back in office.

If you want to talk deplorables, this is a good place. For Donald is truly treating his constituency that way. He is actually intentionally leading them down an impractical path for them, and expecting them to yell and cheer for it. And you know what, they will! But I think anybody in a position of power over others like this should seek the best outcome for everybody, not the narcissistic one. To do otherwise is to treat representation like it takes place in a market, where it can say it serves only its owner. But representation is not that sort of creature. It appears, necessarily out of the whole. If it fails at that, it is no more than a tin pants dictatorship.

[theluckycountry]

People looked up the United Nations when it was formed, they believed it would be a source of great good in the world. Today it is composed of 193 member countries, the vast majority of which are totalitarian dictatorships basically. It is an Oligarchs club, an institution that gives legitimacy to some of the most evil scum on the planet. But that is how human affairs always works. The altruistic people are driven out long before they get near the pinnacles of power, the same as in large corporations. At the top they put on a good show of being human beings but their deeds speak otherwise.

You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time. It is the latter group that are the most dangerous to my mind.

[Pops]

Democracy seems to be holding on but freedom not so much

Washington - March 3, 2021 — Authoritarian actors grew bolder during 2020 as major democracies turned inward, contributing to the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, according to Freedom in the World 2021, the annual country-by-country assessment of political rights and civil liberties released today by Freedom House.

The report found that the share of countries designated Not Free has reached its highest level since the deterioration of democracy began in 2006, and that countries with declines in political rights and civil liberties outnumbered those with gains by the largest margin recorded during the 15-year period. The report downgraded the freedom scores of 73 countries, representing 75 percent of the global population. Those affected include not just authoritarian states like China, Belarus, and Venezuela, but also troubled democracies like the United States and India.

While still considered Free, the United States experienced further democratic decline during the final year of the Trump presidency. The US score in Freedom in the World has dropped by 11 points over the past decade, and fell by three points in 2020 alone. The changes have moved the country out of a cohort that included other leading democracies, such as France and Germany, and brought it into the company of states with weaker democratic institutions, such as Romania and Panama.

https://freedomhouse.org/article/new-re ... ccelerated
----

PEW
MAY 14, 2019
Despite global concerns about democracy, more than half of countries are democratic
BY DREW DESILVER
Concern has been growing for the past several years about the future of democracy, and there is considerable dissatisfaction in many countries with how democracy is working in practice. But public support for democratic ideals remains strong, and by one measure, global democracy is at or near a modern-day high.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... emocratic/

.

[theluckycountry]

Democracy seems to be holding on but freedom not so much.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJBzhcSWTk