Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote: Remember the Irish Potato Famine, in the midst of which beef was being exported out of Ireland to well fed rich folks in England? That kind of crap is happening and will continue to happen all the time. Ask ad how capitalism ensures that this is the case (is he still on these boards?).
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote: There are good reasons why some of us do not see the Government as an enlightened protector of all.
dohboi wrote:T, thanks for the clarifications on food exports. But when you say:
"There are good reasons why some of us do not see the Government as an enlightened protector of all"
Well, yeah--really bad governments can do really bad things. True of any collection of people.
Best not to put people in power who have no compassion, like repugs (and many demorats), then, right?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
dohboi wrote:Generally thought to be generally good?? What does that have to do with anything. The fact is that it wasn't good and was run by racists. Jonathan Swift certainly didn't think it 'generally good.'
King Leopold of Belgium was 'generally thought to be generally good' for most of his life, but that doesn't mean he wasn't one of the greatest murderers in human history, outdoing even Hitler by butchering some ten million Africans.
But perhaps we should take a discussion of historical atrocities and of the proper roles of government to a more appropriate thread? Any suggestions?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
What is Fascism? Recently Chris Hedges wrote of an imperialist US that is infected by “the virus of fascism, wrapped in the American flag, held aloft by the Christian cross and buttressed by white supremacy.” Hedges was not using the term fascism as it would be used by a political theorist or historian. It is common to use “fascism” to indicate a more general and imprecise fascistic tendency. Yet there comes a point when so many fascistic traits are in evidence that you know you must be dealing with a type of Fascism.
The US has become a Fascist state. The similarities between the US regime and past Fascist regimes are too numerous to ignore. There are notable differences, it is true, but they can all be traced to a single point of departure: the original Fascism was a nationalistic creed with imperialist ambitions, this new Fascism is an imperialist ethos and mode of governance. The old Fascism presented itself as monolithic and sought to hide or destroy inter-elite disputes. The new Fascism presents itself as pluralistic while insisting that its monolithic orthodoxies only exist because they are natural, rather than being ideological, and not subject to reasonable dispute. In other words, this new Fascism is an ideology that claims to be non-ideological and, like the old Fascism, it is a politics that claims to be anti-political.
... Fascism is both a political and cultural phenomenon gripping both the elite and the masses. Symptoms include the degradation of democratic institutions; a “justice” system that crushes the weak but will not or cannot touch the strong; a culture of mean-spirited chauvinism and the abandonment of ideals of empathy; increasing state violence and state surveillance; a “corporatist” relationship between government and capital; militarism and interventionism; an emphasis on factional affiliation in politics; an acceptance or celebration of political victory through the exercise of power rather than the contest of ideas; and, last but not least, a proud anti-intellectualism.
But this is not confined to the US. The entire Western world seems to be infected with the virus, and even that is only part of the extent of it. We are witnessing a new wave of Fascism. Imperialist and neoliberal authoritarianism is now expressing itself in mass culture and throwing up salient outcrops of both overt Fascist and cryptofascist groupings. But these are small fry, a mere symptom of a new composite Fascism that has come to dominate our political landscape.
Exhibit “A”
To sample just one country, in the UK popular columnist Katie Hopkins wrote, “these migrants are like cockroaches” and “a plague of feral humans.” She also wrote: “Show me bodies floating in water, play violins and show me skinny people looking sad. I still don’t care.” And she wrote that she would send “gunships” instead of “rescue boats” to deal with asylum seekers. Members of the UK public, or perhaps more predominantly the English public, echo her cruelty. Tourists visiting the Greek island of Kos complain that people in need make their holidays “awkward”. Others tweeted that asylum seekers would be good “target practice” for the Army and that “[t]heir sense of entitlement beggars belief”. There has been a backlash, for sure, but to put that in context there has been significant jump in anti-refugee sentiment with 47% of 6000 polled Britons saying that the UK should not allow any refugees from the Middle East and 41% rejecting asylum seekers altogether.
KaiserJeep wrote:Cid, the only two problems I see are 1) The ever-increasing number of Federal, State, and Local government handouts is creating a new and expanding underclass of non-working drones. 2) The government agencies need to be shrinking their budgets, not growing them.
I am moving from one expensive area (Silicon Valley) to another (Wisconsin) where I will have to live on my pension, my 401K, and Social Security. Based on the real rate of inflation, I'll go from comfortable to poor in about a decade - but I'll probably live two decades.
KaiserJeep wrote:We saw the results of the welfare culture at work in New Orleans after Katrina. The black neighborhoods did not evacuate, the nearest they came was forming gangs to loot the wealthier suburbs. They hunkered down in their hovels and died in great numbers as they waited for the government to come and care for them. Then after being evacuated to the SuperDome, they preyed on one another.
When the Peak Oil crisis comes, be it slow or be it fast, these people don't have a chance, the underclass will all die.
PrestonSturges wrote:KaiserJeep wrote:Cid, the only two problems I see are 1) The ever-increasing number of Federal, State, and Local government handouts is creating a new and expanding underclass of non-working drones. 2) The government agencies need to be shrinking their budgets, not growing them.
I am moving from one expensive area (Silicon Valley) to another (Wisconsin) where I will have to live on my pension, my 401K, and Social Security. Based on the real rate of inflation, I'll go from comfortable to poor in about a decade - but I'll probably live two decades.
And when you do run out of money, we can only hope that there is someone to mock you as a moral failure for running out of money, like you seem to have been doing for much of your life.KaiserJeep wrote:We saw the results of the welfare culture at work in New Orleans after Katrina. The black neighborhoods did not evacuate, the nearest they came was forming gangs to loot the wealthier suburbs. They hunkered down in their hovels and died in great numbers as they waited for the government to come and care for them. Then after being evacuated to the SuperDome, they preyed on one another.
When the Peak Oil crisis comes, be it slow or be it fast, these people don't have a chance, the underclass will all die.
You know, most of those Katrina stories now only exist on white supremacist web sites because so many of them were debunked. But it takes a special kind of mind to see black people dying an tv and somehow concluding that white people were the real victims, and to hang onto that as if it was one of the most important events in your life. Somehow I've managed to get through life without being permanently traumatized by seeing a black person on tv.
KaiserJeep wrote:PrestonSturges wrote:KaiserJeep wrote:Cid, the only two problems I see are 1) The ever-increasing number of Federal, State, and Local government handouts is creating a new and expanding underclass of non-working drones. 2) The government agencies need to be shrinking their budgets, not growing them.
I am moving from one expensive area (Silicon Valley) to another (Wisconsin) where I will have to live on my pension, my 401K, and Social Security. Based on the real rate of inflation, I'll go from comfortable to poor in about a decade - but I'll probably live two decades.
And when you do run out of money, we can only hope that there is someone to mock you as a moral failure for running out of money, like you seem to have been doing for much of your life.KaiserJeep wrote:We saw the results of the welfare culture at work in New Orleans after Katrina. The black neighborhoods did not evacuate, the nearest they came was forming gangs to loot the wealthier suburbs. They hunkered down in their hovels and died in great numbers as they waited for the government to come and care for them. Then after being evacuated to the SuperDome, they preyed on one another.
When the Peak Oil crisis comes, be it slow or be it fast, these people don't have a chance, the underclass will all die.
You know, most of those Katrina stories now only exist on white supremacist web sites because so many of them were debunked. But it takes a special kind of mind to see black people dying an tv and somehow concluding that white people were the real victims, and to hang onto that as if it was one of the most important events in your life. Somehow I've managed to get through life without being permanently traumatized by seeing a black person on tv.
I have NEVER in my life been to a white supremacist web site, and I'm sorry you are so familiar with them. Do you wear a white sheet and go to meetings, too?
KaiserJeep wrote:My knowledge of Katrina came from my daughter who was an experienced Red Cross employee at the time. She volunteered to go to NO and her job was logistics, she had a fleet of several dozen large trucks and was delivering bottled water, food, and other emergency supplies to the Superdome and the Red Cross emergency shelters in the area. She saw and related what I told you and even worse stories - and I believe every word.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Contentious politics in the Baltics: the ‘new’ wave of right-wing populism in Estonia
Controversies over the refugee crisis have provided the populist and more extremist right-wing parties across the ‘new’ Europe with a new impetus. This piece focuses on the case of the, relatively new and increasingly popular, party of EKRE (Estonian Conservative National Party).
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/vassilis-petsinis/contentious-politics-in-baltics-new-wave-of-right-wing-populism
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