Right To Left

The colour wasn't selected by me. And I selected a large font size for the title of that Guardian article with embedded hyperlink, to make the point that these are not my words, and here is the source with a short selection of text afterwards, because when I tried to add more, the formatting got screwed up and I had to delete and start over.....................now, what about the subject?

And you are emotional and abusive now because you know damned well that, even if population density is a little greater in American cities than Canadian cities, that has nothing to do with why the US has done such a piss-poor job of dealing with this pandemic. Otherwise, why is Covid-19 rates rising in the more rural states in the US now....a question I asked before and you ignored? The real reason the US is a failure at dealing with this situation, is because private, for profit medicine is only good at making sure wealthier people get the best care dealing with heart disease and cancer and other aging-related diseases. While infectious diseases started the first movement for public healthcare in England 100 years ago, because if your neighbours are sick and contagious, you'll catch it too if you are stuck in close proximity with them. Which is bad news for rich people who have servants also....and politicians like Donald Trump...since it's been reported yesterday that one of his valets tested positive. At this rate, Donald's days of burning the candle at both ends may be ending soon!

1. You've never read any history of early 20th century Germany or Hitler in particular. Because, he took the lead of a nationalist socialist political party because he was well aware that socialism was too popular during a time when capitalism...especially banking was closely tied to Jewish identity in most people's minds, and the first thing he did when Hindenburg made him leader was to ban unions...not a 'socialist' thing to do obviously. 2. Both the US and Canada had lists of communist party members at the end of WWII.And those lists were used to screen out communists, while nazis and nazi sympathizers (which were in high number in Nazi-collaborative states like Romania, Ukraine and others, were able to pass through. The only thing that might raise the alarm bells was if a Nazi collaborator had been a commander at one of the prison death camps. Other than that, the US Government brought over all of the Nazi scientists they could rustle up (Operation Paperclip) and all through the post-war years, were paranoid and encourage paranoia among Hollywood and other entertainment media of reds under the beds. So, I noticed that the 2nd generation of Eastern Europeans I grew up and went to school with were all anti-communists, but that didn't mean that those who stayed behind were also anti-communists! From my background, my father was an older WWII enlistee than most (age 27) so he took more notice of the shift in media messaging about Russians and about communism after the War ended than most of his fellow soldiers who were 18 to 20 years old when they first went to Europe. Sure, the pro-Russian newsreels and even regular movies didn't say much of anything about communism, but they sure as hell were happy that the Russians were winning the war against the Germans on the Eastern Front! But that all ended as soon as the war was over....like it was a planned doublecross. 3.If you read Marx's grand work - Capital, he makes a case that capitalism inevitably leads towards monopolization. In the 20th century, there were several reform movements that broke up monopolies....starting with Teddy Roosevelt, who felt he had to act against Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt and other monopolists and break up their industries to restore competition. But the reactionary right started creating libertarian propaganda that demanded an end to all government regulation and interference in business practices. So is the present day consolidation of business an error, or just an inevitability, because the leading capitalists decided in the 60's that they needed to start finding ways to use their money to overwhelm a democratic system.

Thank you. I have noticed ever since I got my first computer and went online in the late 90's, that the internet has been rife with bad or abusive behavior from many sides. And it seems to have only gotten worse since the 2010's, with these social media monopolies applying their arbitrary conduct codes and rules. People seem to act more civil when they are face to face and fear that they might suffer consequences for being abusive! As for substantiating my claims -- I was presenting a general overall position on where I see things going today, plus I'm not too happy with the way this forum sets up quotes....it seems to make a mess when you try to post text after providing links and short quotes. So, I've erased a few posts already, that I couldn't get to come out right and decided to give up on and try again later. I myself, have no academic credentials to speak of. I just have had a lifetime of great interest in a wide range of subjects, that as my wife says's:' don't seem to be all that useful for earning more money or starting a more lucrative career.' Be that as it may, I have been happy with my income level most of my adult life, except for when our kids were younger and I felt the need to work a lot more overtime to avoid taking on too much debt. I look forward to discussing some of the subjects I've touched on in greater detail, if that's what you wish. The biggest problem I see today in all political and economic debates is what some writer termed "the Shrinking of the Overton Window," which seems to be a fancy way of saying that the range of debate has shrunk drastically over recent decades because of media consolidation, corporations taking over university departments. As Marxian economist - Richard Wolfe says 'he would have never been able to get hired/let alone hold down a job as an economics professor today because of his 'radical' views, even with his Harvard and Yale education. It's like after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was universal agreement among those who counted, that the collapse was because of communist ideology alone, and meant that capitalism was a superior economic system. And there seems to be a lot of hysterical screaming and accusations now that capitalism has led our world into the greatest crisis in history.

No, the biggest liars are not far left, and not even far right most of the time. It's the state-cooperative mush mainstream middle that are the biggest liars and enablers for evil in this world. Venezuela: captured US mercenary claims he planned to abduct Maduro Speaking on Wednesday, Maduro painted the failed invasion as a 21st-century version of the failed US invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and claimed the intruders had been working for Trump. “Donald Trump is behind all of this,” Venezuela’s authoritarian leader said, brandishing a contract allegedly showing that the mission had been commissioned by his rival, the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó. “Here is the contract. Here are the signatures … a contract for the invasion of Venezuela. A serious offense,” Maduro said, holding up a Washington Post article which also branded the operation “a Bay of Pigs-style fiasco”. Guaidó has denied any links to the incursion. Maduro claimed Trump had “subcontracted” the “disastrous” invasion so as to be able to “wash his hands” of the episode if it went wrong. The mission does indeed seem to have backfired quite spectacularly.

Right! They hate us because of our freedoms....got it! Simplistic garbage. In case you haven't been looking, everything is collapsing under our feet now. That's why the super-rich are warming up their giant yachts and leaving or preparing to leave to their island hideaways now. The people who have profited the most from bleeding the earth and the majority of people for profits, are packing up and thinking they are going to wait out a storm. But, this isn't a storm..this is a long emergency that will just keep winding down as long as there are any people left on earth. So, I don't believe this planet has enough left in it for another empire to rise up and try to conquer and run this world again. If China has hopes of replacing America as the pre-eminent capitalist world power, our dwindling resources, collapsing ecosystems and the rise of new, increasingly lethal diseases in a crowded world, will shortcircuit any attempt China might have of pushing aside the US and expanding its economic production and control of global trade. They will struggle to survive the near future, just like the rest of the people living in the wastes left behind by a gluttonous capitalist culture, that had no consideration for trying to live within nature's limits. The future is going to look a lot more modest, even for those who have big dreams of great wealth and expansion. So, any wannabe John Galt's out there will have to find new planets to harvest for resources, because this one is just about spent!

Actually, we do! Because 90% of Canada's population lives within 150 miles of the US border, and are living in mostly cities and suburbs of major cities. You might also want to consider recent findings that the biggest growth in Covid-19 infections and deaths in America are happening in rural areas in southern and mid-western states.

Compared with what we got on our southern border, indecisive JT is going to come off looking like a genius no matter what he does!

NO, the USA is the most dangerous country on Earth! And they'll pull everyone close to them down with them as they sink under the weight of unpayable debt trying to maintain their global empire! At best, our economy goes down the toilet as America sinks beneath the waves/ at worst - they start finding reasons to go out with a bang: starting wars-to-end-all wars with their brand new mini-nukes against nations that have already warned us that they will respond to a nuclear attack with their own nuclear attacks....what could go wrong?

Well that was bad timing for this post! Now that your freedumb lovin heroes to our south keep raising the bar on depravity! A Bay of Pigs-style fiasco in Venezuela Ishaan Tharoor, The Washington Post Published 10:14 am EDT, Wednesday, May 6, 2020 Trump administration officials this week - including President Donald Trump on Tuesday - rejected any link to an apparent failed military operation over the weekend in Venezuela that involved a group of armed defectors and at least two American mercenaries who are now in Venezuelan detention. President Nicolás Maduro said Monday that his government had stopped a "terrorist" assault on the country, killing eight and capturing more than a dozen of the plotters over two days. Maduro said they sought to incite a rebellion and possibly kill him. Thousands of Venezuelan reservists were deployed to the country's coasts in a show of force. For years, the embattled demagogue has warned of foreign plots against his rule, waving at the specter of treacherous coups and imperialist invasions. Such alarmism often served as a smokescreen for his government's failures and the economic collapse that has taken place under his watch. But this time - as footage circulated by Venezuelan authorities on social media appeared to show a number of apprehended insurrectionists, including two former U.S. Special Operations soldiers - Maduro may have a point. Full article at https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/A-Bay-of-Pigs-style-fiasco-in-Venezuela-15250481.php Notice how WaPo editorializes the news right in the damn story they're reporting on? EMBATTLED DEMAGOGUE..... describing (like it or not) an elected leader. Note that you never, ever see such language used to describe America's allied DEMAGOGUES - like the king-in-waiting of Saudi Arabia! And just like that first Bay of Pigs failed coup, the US Government tries to wash their hands of this failed operation and pretend they knew nothing about it. For anyone counting, it's the second time goofy guiado has failed to seize control of Venezuela on behalf of the foreign government and business(including narcos) interests who are paying him.

Right, and I am not a scholar of Marxism or Marxian Economic Theory, but I get sick and tired of people who talk endlessly about Marx and communism and know absolutely nothing about either! My main point was that Marx spent most of his academic life studying and writing about how capitalism functions and should be expected to function/ NOT about how to set up a communist economy or state. For that matter, as soon as someone starts talking about Marxism and communist governments, I know they have no clue what they are talking about! Because Marx in the 1880's was proposing in his pamphlets - abolishing the state! The break between Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin (the founder of Revolutionary Anarchism) at the 2nd Socialist International, was Bakunin was preaching revolutionaries needed to abolish the state and hand off all of the state functions to local collectives...similar to how the revolutionaries who stormed Paris in the 1870's set up the Paris Commune. While Marx believed the state had to be run by a vanguard of revolutionary socialists until capitalist forces - whether business or traditional landowners were completely defeated. Whatever you make of it, you have to know what you're talking about to start with! And I haven't met a single anti-communist who is not just talking out of his ass and gets offended when challenged by anyone who doesn't follow the same line of BS!

Most of us who lived through the Cold War era, have received the steady diet of "Evils of Communism" and related horseshit all of our lives. What has always been missing, is an honest accounting of the Evils of Capitalism! Especially now, a time when capitalism becomes increasingly ruthless and greedy in exercising its demands of sending more and more profits to the accumulators of capital and NOT to those working...including inventors and developers, who make it possible for capitalists to profit from the work of others! As for your lists of communist deathtolls, at least 90% .... likely more, is mostly numbers pulled out of thin air and cannot be supported by real evidence...just widespread agreement of other anti-communists. For example, death tolls of all kinds, famine, invasion by hostile nations( like Nazi Germany), insurgents, even deliberate malefeasance..such as the US Air Force flying over Korean fields during the Korean War and spraying farms with toxic chemicals to kill crops. Stuff that was only learned about long after the War was over, and is still information suppressed by mainstream media and academic sources, who just consign past wars to history as "We Meant Well" but things didn't turn out as planned....pure garbage! We are finding out now, in the Trump Era, what the true face of capitalism is, as it fails right before our eyes and destroys its financial and trading networks that will crash capitalism worldwide, right before our eyes!

If you do know what you're talking about, you'd be aware that Karl Marx wrote Capital to explain how capitalism functions/not to provide solutions. His goal was to first understand the problem, and he didn't live long enough or have the where-with-all to create a similar expansive work on how everything should function. In his later writings, he called upon others, who were younger, he inspired, to pick up the torch and create socialist societies. And Marx understood capitalism much, much better than David Ricardo and the shills for the business class in the 20th century.

I still have dual citizenship through my US-born mother, and lived for 9 years in the US before returning to Canada. So, I know how your system works better than most Americans do! But, the main reason I'm "butting in" is like so many other outsiders now, who have been less mesmerized by America's self-made mythologized history and especially now, see the US as the most dangerous nation in the world, because of its outsized military and continued intentions to destroy any challengers it sees on the horizon...like China!

Depending where you were in Eastern Europe, was life better after the fall of communism? Or were virtually all state assets and enterprises confiscated by foreign capitalists and local stooges who enriched themselves selling off everything of public benefit. A lot of Russians and other ethnicities died after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and found themselves met by a new capitalist order that cut off their pensions, healthcare, closed their workplaces. This is one of the reasons why, regardless of all of the lamenting and whining that Putin is a dictator, Vlad Putin's popularity in Russia never falls low enough to put him at risk of a coup. Russians who are old enough to remember how it was before, and lived through the collapse and disintegration of the Soviet system, say 'at least he's better than what we had before!'

And who brought the Islamic State there? Look up Operation Timber Sycamore, which showed how that last color revolution fell apart spectacularly.....a scheme concocted by the CIA and their friends in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey to destabilize and demolish the secular republic of Syria, with no consideration for what the future consequences of their actions would be.....look we got a fight ISIS now! Those crazy Muslims!!

Yes, but the Ottoman Empire was in decline, long before they decided to get involved in a European war and fracture into a million pieces. Maybe because they were struggling to maintain their empire, the Turks allowed a lot more leeway than the French and British colonists who came later, and told them how they were going to develop their economies. The British and French had more to do with spawning the Islamic reactionary movements than any mullah or ayatollah trying to gather a crowd. And speaking of lack of awareness of history, didn't you even know that a democratic government - Mossadegh was overthrown, with the Shah imposed by the US as a favour to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company(later BP) and the Brits, to ease the transition from England to the USA as pre-eminent world power. The Iranians suffered under a brutal dictatorship for decades, and while communists and other movements were murdered and suppressed, the Shah's government and secret service (SAVAK) could only go so far when it came to opposition from the Ayatollah. So, "succumbing to a strongman" is not from inborn weakness by the locals in any of the colonies that have become US commercial colonies since WWII, but because the forces of imperial capitalism unleash the CIA, who seek out locals who can serve their purposes, and if an obstinate government is more difficult to overthrow, the US Gov. has not been averse to outright invasion and removal. They would prefer otherwise because of the costs. But the goal is to keep everyone under the boot of US and international institutions that maintain neoliberal capitalism around the world.

How many Canadians are being held in US prisons right now? And NO, I reflexively avoid news stories that look like useful propaganda for those in power over here. That's why I also haven't bothered to weigh in on these Hong Kong demos that are starting up again, now that they've ended their social distancing and quarantine policies. There are some almost drowned out voices on the marginalized, independent left, who are calling HK an astroturf uprising similar to the color revolutions in Kiev, Georgia, Egypt, Syria etc., but there are only so many hours in the day, and I don't have time to explore every topic that comes up.

Okay, I don't see the point of your post! I see Obama to Trump as part of a continuity of government/not something radically different, regardless of who your favorite team is. The only reason why a lot of deep state players who have been greatly enriched by Trump's tax cuts and gifts like the latest CARES program, is because he's stupid and boorish. Sometimes they are entertained by how he talks to foreign leaders, but they don't like having a buffoon as their rep in the White House.

NOOO, and history again; it was the US and the British Empire slightly before them, who deliberately shortcircuited the reform and democracy movements that were developing in Arab nations during the 19th century, because...as always, empires find compliant local dictators are more suitable for their objectives than democratic regimes that can be unruly and uncooperative for foreign opportunists!

Oh yes, we still had those customs also. I recall when I was young, and even though my parents rarely went to church, most of the older women of my mother's age always had these hats they were expected to wear in church. And my mother said that it was considered a major scandal in the early 60's when JFK's First Lady - Jackie started attending church without any hat or head-covering. That was deemed highly disrespectful by the older generation at the time.

Note that you cut off my quote mentioning Canada and our PM's limpwristed response to US thievery. Would this shit be tolerated by any other country in the world? But, you're afraid of the inevitable conclusion that the US has no value for any allies....including us! And we should have charted our own course in the world like Chretien promised/but reneged on back in the 80's. As the US collapses, whether it's a re-elected Trump or a clown like Biden behind the wheel, the US will continue trying to devour the wealth of all other nations-- allies or adversaries be damned! Once again, Ahmurika is our greatest threat! And we should have continued the less financially rewarding independent course, instead of becoming a US colony!

I've noticed many of your other posts (and those of likeminded friends and allies here), so I'm responding to a general theme that's very popular today among the capitalist elite: a dismal view of human nature as savage, and only kept from destruction by the fear of retribution and punitive laws. No, that's how capitalism would work if humans were little automatons that act in predictable ways. Everything would flow according to supply and demand...although you would still have the problem of capital accumulation eventually reaching absurd levels like we have today, even if we didn't have the Wall Street charlatans and billionaire class using bought off politicians to change laws regulating their political and media influence. Those workers getting sick working in places like Cargill are a good example of how the profiteers face no criminal charges for putting workers lives in danger, just to keep their costs as low as possible/and profits as high as possible. They will only face very limited class action lawsuits at civil trials....if it ever actually happens. And, they have already calculated in the costs of any legal jeopardy and determined that sickening and killing a certain portion of their employees doesn't justify increasing spacing on line work stations and even providing employees with proper protective equipment....let alone getting danger pay for doing a shit job for low wages that endangers their lives! This is how wildcat strikes started over 100 years ago in the US and Canada, and worth noting also, how so many of the wealthy new capitalist class were sent to the guillotines along with the traditional oppressive classes of monarchy and landed gentry in France back when they had their big revolution a couple of centuries ago! The last ones who thought it could happen were the ones who got their heads chopped off! At best, those would be franchise owners, not real owners! They're like middle management in the new franchising system where corporations sell their name/while the local franchise operator has to cover all of the operating costs, while they are obligated to abide by standards set by corporate headquarters regarding how their stores or restaurants are set up, what they sell and how much, what they pay their employees, how they decorate the place, store hours etc.. And like the true capitalist the franchisor can sit back and just let the money roll in from all the franchises they own! So, that enterprizing owner you're celebrating is a glorified mid-management hack who's stuck having to cut his staffing to the bone during hard times and get out and do the dangerous and mundane jobs along with his employees. I may very well have given the minimum during my life regarding how I earn a living...certainly that could be said from what's been happening in our brave new era of neoliberalism, where education is career-focused and nothing else, and nobody (except for immigrants) goes to a local library and reads about things they find of interest, but aren't going to put any more money on the table for them! Perhaps I am lucky (as I've said a few times) that I grew up and came of age in the middle of the baby boom, before NAFTA had outsourced industry, and if you wanted to work with your hands, rather than do business deals, you could still make good money if you found a trade that you liked and worked towards a full apprenticeship. Sadly those days are long gone now, in an era where the only people who are respected are the great swindlers who manage money and create new ways to devour wealth...even destroying the wealth of others in the process....something they call "creative destruction" I'm told. Supposedly this makes a better, brighter world for us all!

It's an emergency.....delay the Nov vote. The Dems once again, have set the table for the GOP by removing the presidential ballot from the New York Primary. That was claimed to be because of concerns over voters being exposed to the virus by going to the polls....something they weren't concerned about in Wisconsin for some reason. But, be that as it may, the polls will still be open and New Yorkers can go vote for all of those running for lower offices. So, what was the point again? Well, what's to stop Trump from just cancelling the whole damn thing if the Democrats could go do it for obvious political reasons: keep Bernie voters away from the polls and possibly dumping out some of those fossils in the down-ballot races.....like AOC did when she dumped out 20 year in office bagman- Joe Crowley. Suspicious political observers say the insiders don't want that happening again. So, it looks like the democratic system across the border is already clinging to the term- democracy by a thread.

From what little I know of how Muslim women are expected to dress in public, it is mostly taken from cultural context/not verses in the Quran or Hadiths etc. So, when it comes to women veiling or wearing niqaabs or burqas, it was already widespread Arabic and MidEast and Mediterranean cultures in ancient times, that women....especially of higher status or class, covered their hair and veiled their faces when out in public. So, this goes back long before the 7th century and the time of Muhammed. In more recent history, most women did not cover their faces in Egypt back when the French and English were barnstorming through trying to add Egypt to their growing list of colonies. And in the coastal Arabian cities, women 2 or 3 centuries ago were described as wearing long, colorful dresses.....not all black as since the rise of the Wahabbi clerics. If everyone, including women, got to wear whatever they feel comfortable wearing, there would be a lot less drama involved in this topic! Especially if it's men, as I noticed previously, stating how they prefer women to wear less clothing than more.