Reducing wealth inequality would be excellent, but you have to persuade a public who associate the slightest of tax rises with communism.
Peace may win in the long term, but at what cost? Did peace ‘win’ in the thirties and forties?
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Music was awful and the Conan thing absurd, but he is speaking to Americans and not the world.
Given it was a message to that target audience, I thought it was fantastic.
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The Conan stuff is hogwash of course, but his recollections of growing up in post war Austria are poignant.
Not a word I ever thought I’d associate with him, but these are strange times…
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I didnt say there wasnt trouble coming. There is, its just how bad and who is pulling strings.
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I would have loved Sanders, but beating Trump most important indeed and Sanders would have lost.
Edit: also sorry for not noticing that you had already posted the video.
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Yep. I stand corrected (as usual). I had not followed Bernie’s interview with the required precision.
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This from @Noo_Noo needs answering:
There’s no quick fix we see the same divides over most of the western democracies.
I feel we need to go back to basics recreating our Principles and defining our responsibilities.
The fact that Trump, some sort of egocentric businessman and for that matter Macron, a financial institution bighead advisor, where elected president just goes to show how messed up we are.
Politicians don’t need to be made accoutable they should be self accountable through their principles and the public should be able to see them as ‘trustworthy’.
2 problems arise, setting out principles that the majority can agree with and follow, and the time that will take. Doing away with hundreds of years of nonsense, lies and lack of justice just doesn’t go away overnight.
When you have opinion channels claiming to be news outlets this task is multiplied x number of times. So we also need clear definitions like what is news and what is opinion, it might seem clear and easy but in our climate it just isn’t.
There’s also the domain of our economies there needs to be enormous reform on business and finance yet there seems little will in some countries (my take is ‘in the name of capitalism we are destroying ourselves’ (I would add that some countries are taking the piss out of us and to some degree rightly so).
As for Trumps far right followers I believe there will be transformation, they will not dissappear though there will be divergence. Some will become more radical and could become a problem others will stay tyhe same and then the rest will rejoin 'normal society. The potential for a resurgence will remain for many years and I don’t feel we should be complacent, then I have no sympathy for them what so ever (funny lot with their lies on the lies, fake on fake, false on false philosophy).
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A warning from a very knowledgeable political analyst:
Also, one Republican brave voice amongst…a mere handful:
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Brilliant, exactly the problem. Every side now contributes to the chronic state of things.
The world actually needs centrists.
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“No one could have foreseen this” Part XXXXXXXIV 
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@Flobs I agree with your premise. But you can’t stop another Trump from running for the office or can’t stop Fox spewing misinformation.
However, you can reform the law enforcement agencies. Weed-out racist, corrupt elements and hold the forces on account. That will stop incidents like the Floyd Killing (and the resultant fallout) and Proud Boys inciting violence.
Biden has to lower the bar if he wishes to rise higher. He has to focus his energy on achievable projects if he is to make real changes.
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61% of republicans are of the outrageous opinion that Trump has done nothing wrong.
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Posting this here, because you know in your heart of hearts (or brain) that the US msm will spin this as aimed towards Biden first and foremost (which will partly be true, but only a for a small part)
Anyway, we now have Iran, North Korea on the “challenge cards”, Iran fully Trump’s fault, North Korea partly Trump’s fault, while the massive contours of Russia and China are looming in the shadows:
Expect some drama, though admittedly, considering the absolute mayhem going on domestically in the US, this may for once be relegated to page 7 news with a small box of info.
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NK is a 100% subsidiary of China, and will be used as a proxy to test the resolve of the US.
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I think Vlad is in the mix too; this NK problem goes back to the 2nd Bush administration. Its a perfect threat, a wildcard nation with nothing to lose pointing nukes at you. US is encircled by an axis right now, of Russia, China, Iran, Extreme Islam, NK and Burger King. Is it all their own doing, probably not. Have they done anything sensible to defuse it? No. This shit gonna fly.
It does but it also needs people who can appeal, to some degree to both extremes.
At the moment centrist appears to be a very thin line. It needs a broad band that encompasses the vast majority and even on the odd occasions appeals to the outliers.
Lord knows who and how you achieve that though.
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Well of course, some need reeling in.
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Why do you think they are 100% a subsidiary of China ? That’s not what Western North Korea experts I have read say. North Korea needs China, but for China, North Korea is also a problem and they were not at all in favour of Kim Jung Un’s ICBM tests. It is a Damocles sword for China, they don’t want to empower South Korea, but they are very unhappy with the solo play from Pyongyang as far as I know.
It is difficult re-finding old tweets from 2016 and 2017, but a google search found these headlines on page 1 after I wrote in Chinese anger at North Korea on google search engine. Note they are from very different years.
I would recommend reading: https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly
Old stuff https://twitter.com/annafifield when she was a journalist in South Korea.
https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ has good knowledge.
https://twitter.com/ArmsControlWonk intimate knowledge, as well as colleagues who know more than most, so if you go on twitter, you can basically click on his friends and read them.
https://twitter.com/NarangVipin
https://twitter.com/nktpnd
https://twitter.com/DaveSchmerler
https://twitter.com/Joshua_Pollack
https://twitter.com/wslafoy
https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst
https://twitter.com/KingstonAReif
https://twitter.com/nukestrat
https://twitter.com/JBWolfsthal
https://twitter.com/ColinKahl
https://twitter.com/Cirincione
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I still believe that this is a domestic terrorism problem, and while its shocking to see that 60% of republican voters don’t think Trump did anything wrong, the numbers of people that will actually go out and commit felonies on his behalf are going to be quite small. If the agencies actually get on the ball those people should be easy to find, watch and isolate if they are seriously moving towards violence.
The problem America has, and it’s one we share, is that democracy has not yet realised that it needs a rethink in the age of social media. There are too many lazy politicians of all parties who have not realised that social media has destroyed civic discourse. I would not be surprised if SM was now most people’s primary news source. That’s a really dangerous place to be.
Governments have got to get to grips with this and pull us out of a situation where every individual is down a rabbithole confirming all their existing prejudices and spitting back at them stuff that will only pull them further in.
The main task facing our nations is how do we get that genie back in the bottle. How do we get these platforms under control. Unfortunately those same governments, and their opposition, are only too happy to play those algorithms to their own short term advantage.
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